


The Beat of Our Noisy Hearts

by cleflink



Category: Supernatural RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Bakery, And I mean that very literally, Angst and Feels, Cupcakes, Graphic descriptions of medically impossible heart care, Heartbreaking, Hearts, M/M, Magical Realism, Serial Killers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-02
Updated: 2013-08-02
Packaged: 2017-12-22 05:47:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 47,890
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/909642
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cleflink/pseuds/cleflink
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In a world where heartbreak is a literal condition, it's Jared's job to sew, fill and patch the physical wounds left in people's hearts by lost loves, misunderstandings and betrayals. Jared's own love life is more than a little dire, largely because Jensen doesn't date and Jared doesn't do one-night stands, but he's got good friends and a job he loves, so he figures that he can't complain too much.</p><p>When a killer attacks Jensen, Jared discovers that a needle and thread, desperation and a sharp scalpel are enough to save Jensen's life, but at a cost that is going to change Jared's life forever and tie them both together in a way that goes far deeper than flesh.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Beat of Our Noisy Hearts

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [spn_j2_bigbang](http://spn_j2_bigbang.livejournal.com)'s 2013 round. The art is the work of the utterly incomparable [petite_madame](http://petite_madame.livejournal.com)!
> 
> A nicer version of the PDF than the one offered by AO3 can be found [here](http://www.mediafire.com/?t8bv5j5b1jw3b9j).

Jared was out of green thread.

"Have I got any green left?" he asked Adrianne, poking his head out into reception. "Mr. Chau has a few small tears I want to sew up, but I can't find any."

"I have no idea why you expect me to know," Adrianne said, though she clicked obligingly away from her Solitaire game to pull up the inventory records. "When did you last order some?"

Jared pursed his lips. "Two months ago, maybe?"

"How much?"

"Fifty skeins?" Jared paused. "Ish?"

Adrianne rolled her eyes. "I have no idea how you stay in business." 

"You," Jared said promptly. 

"Clearly." Adrianne navigated her way smoothly through the records, pulling up a tally sheet that made absolutely no sense to Jared; yet more proof that Adrianne was well worth the hefty salary Jared paid her. "Hmm. Have you used any this week so far?"

"Yeah, of course. 12 inches or so, at least."

"Then you're out of luck." Adrianne sat back and looked first at Jared's gloves and then at the ridiculous cap he had to use to keep his hair back while he was working. She made a face. "Did you seriously leave him in there half finished?"

Jared waved a dismissive hand at her. "The sedatives won't wear off for at least another hour. It'll be fine." It didn't actually matter one way or the other whether Jared's clients were under sedation while he worked on them, but most people tended to be more comfortable with the whole process when they weren't awake to experience it.

Which also made Jared's job easier, so he couldn't really complain.

"Jared," Adrianne said.

"What? I needed green thread! It's not like I left him spread out all over the floor!”

Adrianne sighed. “Go finish up with Mr. Chau. And no more wandering off. I'll call Jessica to see if she's got any green in stock, but you're going to go have to go without for now."

"Got it." Jared flashed her a grin. "Thanks."

"Hopeless," Adrianne said, though she was smiling even as she said it. "Now go do your job so I can do mine in peace."

"That did look like a particularly grueling game of Solitaire," Jared agreed.

Adrianne threw a pencil at his head. Jared ducked away from it with a grin and headed back to the exam room. 

Mr. Chau was right where Jared had left him: out cold in Jared's exam chair, naked from the waist up and breathing in a slow, steady rhythm that drew immediate attention to the neat pair of scalpel incisions that split the skin just below his left nipple. There was just a hint of blood smeared on his chest where Jared's fingers had brushed against the skin.

Jared left Mr. Chau where he was for the moment and headed across the room to his supply cupboards. He considered his massive store of threads for a thoughtful moment before reaching for the blue. He wasn't really sure that Mr. Chau's empathy needed the boost that came from using blue thread, but blue also brought courage, which could be only to the good in Mr. Chau's situation. It wasn't as good as green, but it was the best alternative that Jared had.

Shutting the cupboard carefully behind him, Jared paused to collect a fresh needle before depositing both it and the skein of blue thread on the table at Mr. Chau's elbow. He put on a fresh pair of gloves as he sat himself back down, then reached out to peel back the skin laid open by his scalpel.

Mr. Chau's heart gleamed slickly under the overhead light, the fleshy muscle pulsing in dark, striking contrast to the gleam of pewter plating shielding the ragged hole in the right atrium. It was a tidy piece of work, if Jared did say so himself; despite how badly Mr. Chau's ex-girlfriend had worked him over, it was likely that he was going to recover with all of his emotional capacity intact and, if he followed his aftercare properly, limited scar tissue. 

Jared was pleased, and not just in satisfaction of a job well done; he would have hated to see a guy so young going the rest of his life with a numbed heart because he'd been too trusting of his first serious girlfriend.

A glance at the clock told Jared that he needed to get a move on and so he left off his assessment of the work he'd already done and turned his attention to the smaller nicks and scratches that he'd noted earlier. He cut off a generous length of silky blue thread, picked up the needle, settled himself comfortably and began.

Of all the strengths and weaknesses in the human body, hearts were at once the most powerful and the most vulnerable. The heart was the seat of a person's identity, the home of their strength, their love, their very spirit. But the heart was also fragile: easily bruised and easily broken.

Which was where people like Jared came in.

Jared was a mender. It was his job to heal the physical scars left on a person's heart by the heartbreaks of life. He worked in the realm of the emotional; he couldn't prevent a heart attack or unclog a blocked artery, but he could help a person recover from lost loves, misunderstandings, betrayals. He gave people the physical help they needed to be able to come to terms with the mental and emotional struggles that had caused the damage in the first place.

And Jared was very, very good at his job.

Jared had always had a gift for healing hearts. The way his mother told it, Jared had started mending before he'd finished learning how to walk. As a child, he'd put gentle hands and a warm smile to good use easing other people's hurts and, as he'd grown, he'd naturally gravitated towards the possibilities afforded by a mending certification.

At college, Jared had learned the art of piecing a person's flesh back together with needles and threads and cogs and metal plating. He'd been taught how to recognize the gentle pink flush of affection, the purple ache of unrequited love, the sickly yellow-green of heartache, the healthy ruby glow of a love kept and shared. He'd explored which colours and metals worked best for each kind of heartache. He'd learned how to put a broken heart back together and, perhaps more importantly, to see what had made it fall apart in the first place.

It had taken Jared six years to build up the finances and reputation to open his own clinic - hardly any time at all in the mending world. Still, the transition from public clinic to private practice had been a long time coming in Jared's case; he'd always been miles ahead of the curve when it came to mending.

These days, Jared was one of the most sought after menders in the city. He got to do a job he loved and made a very good living while he was at it. He was voluntarily overworked and his social life was more than a little dismal, but he was still just about as happy as he thought he could possibly be.

Well, except for the faint tinge of unrequited love on his own heart, but Jared had plenty of practice at working around that.

The rest of Mr. Chau’s appointment went like clockwork: Jared stitched up the small tears in short order, then traded the blue thread out for white - healing and unity - to close up the incisions. He cleaned up his supplies while he waited for Mr. Chau to come around, then put the man through a quick but thorough check-up to make sure that everything was working right.

Awake, Mr. Chau was full of enthusiastic thanks that Jared managed to accept without being too awkward about it. Jared didn't bother trying to suppress the little ball of happiness in his stomach that came from knowing that he'd made a difference in Mr. Chau's life. 

“Nice work,” Adrianne said to Jared, once Mr. Chau had settled his paperwork and gone off to continue his day with a fully functional heart that probably felt lighter than it had in months. She winked in a decidedly cheeky fashion. "Major improvement over how he was at his consultation."

Jared gave her a wry look. “Asked you out, huh?”

It wasn’t surprising. Adrianne was tall, tanned and blonde in all the best ways and she lived up to all that pretty by being cheerful, kind and ridiculously easy to get along with. Sometimes, Jared thought that having her working his front desk was nearly as helpful to his patients as the mending was.

It was also normal for people who’d had heart mendings done to have a considerably more optimistic outlook on things like dating than they’d had previously. Jared and Adrianne both tended to collect more than their fair share of phone numbers, though Adrianne definitely had the bigger collection. 

Adrianne laughed. "Naturally. But I was talking about the fact that he took it well when I turned him down. Not everyone can do that gracefully.”

“Maybe you’re losing your touch,” Jared suggested innocently. He received a whack on the arm for his trouble. 

“Jackass. Just because you’re too gay to appreciate how hot I am, doesn’t mean the rest of the world doesn't know it.” Adrienne was bi, which she considered her own little gift to the world. Jared had to agree that she had a point. "He's a good kid, but anyone I think of as a 'good kid' is way too young for me."

Jared laughed. "Fair enough. He was too short for you, anyway."

Adrianne snorted. "Says the giant. So, I called Jessica," she said then. "She hasn't got enough green on hand to fill out an entire order, but she's agreed to put three skeins aside for you, which ought to be enough to last until our next shipment comes in. A next shipment that I've very kindly ordered for you, by the way, since you're apparently incapable of keeping track of your own inventory."

"You're my hero," Jared told her sincerely. "Am I good to go round there now?"

Adrianne nodded. "Your next appointment isn't until 4:00, which'll give you plenty of time to pick up your thread and stop for lunch on the way back. As long as you don't take too long browsing at _Cog Runners_ for stuff you don't need, of course."

"It's for work!" Jared defended. 

"Of course it is. That's why you've got a full bag of twelve gauge cogs back there that I know for a fact you've never used."

"I-" Jared started, before giving it up as a bad job. She was right, of course, which always made her harder to argue against. Damn her logic.

Adrianne patted him on the arm. "Acknowledging you have a problem is the first step, honey. Just don't take forever, okay? Oh." She leaned over the counter, providing Jared with a lovely, if unappreciated, view of the creamy swell of her breasts in her low-cut top. "And after you've finished flirting with the hot guy from the bakery, make sure to bring me back one of their cranberry macadamia cookies." 

Jared felt his cheeks heat. "I do not _flirt_ with-"

"Yes, you do," Adrianne said matter-of-factly. "Just because he hasn't noticed, it doesn't mean it's not flirting."

"It's not!"

"Whatever, Jared. If it wasn't, you wouldn't be blushing. Now go." Adrianne made a shooing motion towards the door. "The more time you stand around here, the less time you're going to have to fail completely at asking the bakery guy to pity-date you."

"You're really lucky you're good at your job," Jared told her as he headed for the door. "Or I would so totally fire you."

"Remember: four o'clock!" Adrianne called after him, and Jared shook his head as he ventured out into the sunshine. Sometimes, he really wasn't sure who was the boss and who was the employee.

_Cog Runners_ was Jared's favourite metal and thread shop in the city. He'd learned about the place from his Metallurgy Fundamentals prof in college and had been buying his supplies there ever since, initially for personal use and then in bulk for his clinic. It was an independent supplier, which meant that Jared's purchases cost him more than they would have from one of the big bulk distributors, but Jared preferred spending the extra on materials he could be sure were top quality.

About the only problem with the place was the fact that he invariably acted like a kid in a candy store every time he walked in. Adrianne despaired of him, Jared knew, but he didn't figure anyone could blame him for being prone to impulse shopping in a store that sold all of his favourite things. If nothing else, it meant that his clinic was always very well stocked. Unexpected shortages of green, notwithstanding, of course.

Despite his best intentions which, admittedly, weren't all that great to begin with, Jared spent a good half hour browsing at _Cog Runners_ and ultimately left with a very nice set of silver needles, some pre-oxidized copper plating and a box of bolts in addition to the promised three skeins of green thread. Adrianne was going to laugh at him.

A quick glance at his watch revealed that Jared still had time to grab something to eat before heading back to work, so he hung a left instead of a right when he was two-thirds of the way back to the clinic, heading for one of the best not-kept secrets in the city. 

_The Cinnamon Star Bakery_ was unusually quiet when Jared got there, probably because it was the middle of the afternoon; it wasn't unusual to see a line to the door during peak times. The bell chimed Jared's arrival and Jared breathed deeply as he was wrapped in the warm, curling smells of freshly baked bread, sugar and rich, heady chocolate.

The person behind the counter looked up as Jared walked in and offered Jared a bright, million dollar smile that made Jared's stupid heart jump. Partly because it was a very, very pretty smile and partly because Jared had a very, very pathetic crush on the guy it belonged to.

Jensen Ackles was the owner of _The Cinnamon Star Bakery_. Jared had known him for three years and, in that time, had found him to be friendly, quick-witted and thoroughly enjoyable to be around, if a little aloof sometimes and a lot wary of personal questions. This, coupled with the fact that Jensen was the kind of good looking that Jared had always figured had to be airbrushed to exist, was Jared's excuse for both why he was so gone over the guy and why he hadn't done anything about it.

The fact that Jensen hadn't even noticed had something to do with that second bit too.

"Hey, Jared," Jensen said easily. "Skipping work again?"

Jared firmly told his inner teenage girl not to embarrass him and gave Jensen a smile of his own. "It's one of the perks of being self employed," he said breezily. "You get to make your own hours."

"Maybe you do," Jensen said, gesturing to his own position behind the counter. "Some of us take our businesses more seriously than that."

Jared looked pointedly at the half-finished crossword sitting on the counter at Jensen's elbow. "Yeah, I can see you're working _real_ hard."

"Oh, screw you," Jensen said, without heat. "Should'a been here two hours ago. Freaking mad house."

"That's what you get for being successful," Jared said, which made Jensen laugh. Jared enjoyed making Jensen laugh.

"Yeah, well, I wouldn't be nearly as successful if you didn't spend so much money here," Jensen said. "Seriously, if I had kids, your sugar habit would be putting them through college."

Jared put his hands on his hips, . "You saying I'm fat?" he asked.

"I'm saying that you can skip all the work you want as long as you spend the time buying my desserts."

"Hey, I'll have you know that I've been out on important mender-type business," Jared said. 

"Ah," Jensen deadpanned. "And what kind of important mender-type business has you running out on your clinic in the middle of the afternoon, dare I ask?"

Jared held up his shopping bag. "Emergency supply run. I ran out of green thread."

"And that's bad, I'm guessing."

Jared nodded. "S'the best colour on the market for minor damage repair."

"Yeah?" Jensen asked, with mostly absent interest. "What's it do?"

"Hope and rebirth."

Jensen's smirk was just the tiniest bit biting. "Bet you get a lot people looking for that."

Jared shrugged awkwardly. "I use a lot of it, yeah," was all he said. Jensen never tended to be very interested in Jared's job. Jared coughed and clumsily changed the subject. "So, what is it that smells so fantastic?"

"Oh, that's the special: blueberry sugar Danishes. Sold out over lunch so I figured I'd make another batch for the after work crowd."

Jared perked up. Jensen's daily specials were one of the many things about _The Cinnamon Star Bakery_ that made it stand out among all the other bakeries and coffee shops in the city. The specials were usually whatever Jensen felt like experimenting with when he got up that day, which meant that they didn't go on the regular menu - to the great dismay of pretty much anyone who'd ever walked in the door - and they sold fast. In all the time that he'd been coming here, Jared had never known Jensen to repeat a daily special wholesale, which made customers even keener on trying everything.

" _Please_ tell me that they're nearly done," Jared said, not at all too proud to beg. Jensen's desserts were worth it. "It would be incredibly irresponsible of me to cancel my afternoon appointment to await baked goods."

Jensen looked amused. "Yes, it would." He tilted his head to glance at the timer on the stove, easily visible from his spot next to the cash register. 

It would never have occurred to Jared to put a bakery's kitchen behind the main counter instead of in the back somewhere, but there was no denying that it worked surprisingly well. The benefits were two-fold: Jensen and his staff could serve customers and prepare desserts at the same time, and most customers - Jared included - enjoyed watching them whip up beautiful cakes, cookies, truffles, whatever, right before their eyes. Most of the daily bake got done before the bakery opened, of course, but it was rare to walk into _Cinnamon Star_ and not see Jensen or one of his staff members up to their elbows in baking supplies. 

"Looks like you've only got about ten minutes to wait, oh impatient one," Jensen said, and Jared let go of a relieved breath. Which made Jensen laugh at him again, but Jared was okay with that.

Jared grinned at him. "I'll wait, in that case. They're bound to be gone again by the time I finish this evening. And there's nothing better than baked goods right out of the oven."

"You've got time to get yourself a coffee while you're waiting," Jensen suggested. " _Percolate_ 's got a dark blend that'll go nicely with these." 

_Percolate_ was the trendy little coffee shop just down the street; Jensen had worked out a deal with the owner so that they kept tabs on each other's menus and recommended dessert/coffee-tea combos to their customers. 

"My brownies are on three for two with a receipt for their coffee," Jensen added. 

"You are such a businessman," Jared said, with a teasing grin.

"Easier than opening my own coffee shop," Jensen said, a little sharply. Jared blinked, surprised at the tone. 

"Well I think I'll pass today," Jared said, after a beat. "Adrianne will gut me if I get a coffee for me and not her and I can't carry two drinks in addition to everything else."

"Excuses, excuses. Hey," Jensen said then, his smile back in place as though it had never left. Jared wondered what had upset him in the first place. "You gonna be at _The Bishop_ tonight?" 

They'd found out that they drank at the same bar by accident, not long after Jared had first wandered into _The Cinnamon Star_. They never made plans to meet there or anything - they weren't exactly _friends_ , no matter how well they got on at the bakery - but they'd always make time for a few words and maybe a drink or two if they were there on the same nights.

"Bulls are playing the Miami Heat," Jensen said. "Should be a good game."

Jared hadn't intended on going out tonight. He didn't care much about either team and he was seriously short on sleep this week. He'd been distinctly looking forward to an early night and a good long sleep.

Which did nothing whatsoever to explain why what came out of Jared's mouth was, "Of course, yeah."

Jensen looked pleased. "Guess I'll see you tonight, then."

"Guess so. I'll look forward to it. Princess," Jared tacked on at the end, to keep from sounding too much like a lovesick puppy. 

"Of course you will." Jensen paused for a moment. "So, since we've got the time, I've got an important question for you."

Jared did not swallow hard, mostly because he was too dry-mouthed to need to. "Yeah?"

Jensen looked at him, perfectly straight-faced, and waved a hand towards his unfinished crossword puzzle. "Do you know a five-letter word for 'humble'?"

Jared very carefully didn't sigh. He should have known. "Got any letters?"

Jensen was never going to ask him the kind of questions Jared wanted to hear, after all. It was stupid to hope otherwise.

"You are the most useless candy-ass motherfucker I have ever met," Chad said, rather more loudly than Jared appreciated. _The Bishop_ was busy, but not _that_ busy. "You lose your balls when you joined the rainbow brigade?"

"Chad," Jared groaned. "Could we maybe not do this for once?"

Chad, being Chad, ignored him.

"Look. You wanna tap that?" Chad nodded at the far end of the bar where Jensen was sat watching the game with a couple of friends. Jared fought the urge to bang his head against the table until he passed out. "Then man the fuck up and do something about it. All this pining bullshit's making it very hard for me to enjoy being drunk."

"Shut up," Jared muttered, mostly into his glass.

Chad was drawing in a breath - probably to deliver another stunning example of what he considered a pep talk - when a tall blond guy who looked like he'd been transplanted right out of an episode of Baywatch appeared at Jensen's side. Jared watched as he leaned in and said something that Jared couldn't make out at this distance. Not that he needed to; the sharp, flirty grin that Jensen offered the guy in response was pretty hard to mistake.

Chad snorted derisively. "That's what I'm fucking talking about. Dude practically gives it away. He's not gonna say no."

"I know," Jared said morosely. Because Jensen clearly had standards - he didn't go home with just anybody - but, well. If Jared was feeling uncharitable, he could have described Jensen as easy. If was feeling _really_ uncharitable, he could have described Jensen as kind of a man whore. It was hard to disagree with either statement.

"So what the fuck are you waiting for?" Chad demanded.

Jared glared at him. "You know what."

"Oh right," Chad said, the irony in his voice thick enough to spread on toast. "I forgot. You're looking for an _emotional_ connection. Fuck, it's no wonder you never get laid."

"I'm just not interested in a one-night stand, okay?" Jared said. And since Jensen was pretty much the king of the one-night stand, it was pretty safe to say that Jared wasn't going to get very far there. Jared didn't fancy sleeping with the guy just to have Jensen never give him the time of day afterwards.

It wasn't just Jared being paranoid, either; he'd watched it happen. Jensen could go from blatant, eye fucking interest to shutting guys down cold as soon as the possibility of an actual date - or a second night in Jensen's bed - got put on the table. 

And Jared wasn't about to put himself through that. No matter how much he wanted to see Jensen spread out on his sheets (or on the table, or against the wall, or…).

As Jared sat there, alternating between staring creepily at Jensen and trailing a despondent finger through the rings of condensation on the table, Jensen climbed to his feet, amid backslapping and razzing from his friends, and headed for the door with Baywatch close at his heels. 

Their path took them past Jared and Chad's table, and Jensen threw Jared a jaunty salute that Jared returned with considerably less jaunt. "Let me know who wins, okay?" Jensen said.

"Sure," Jared managed, and then Jensen was gone, off to sleep in someone else's bed. As usual.

Jared let his head thunk onto the table with a groan. "Fuck my life."

Chad patted his shoulder. "Next round's on me."

Jared was very proud of his waiting room.

One of the things that Jared had never understood about hospitals and doctor's offices and the like was why everyone seemed to think that waiting rooms needed to be clinical, uncomfortable and boring beyond belief. Personally, if he was going to be stuck waiting somewhere for God only knew how long, Jared would rather not spend the entire time staring at the cracks in the ceiling and wondering why they always insisted on painting the walls beige. 

It was especially important for a mending clinic's waiting room to be welcoming, Jared thought, because the last thing someone with a heart condition needed was to sit around feeling unhappy and uncomfortable in the very place that was supposed to be helping them get better.

Which was why Jared had worked hard to make his waiting room feel about as non-clinical as possible. He'd done a pretty darn good job on it too, even if he did say so himself. 

The ubiquitous padded metal chairs characteristic of waiting rooms the world over had been traded in for massive plush couches and armchairs that were big enough to allow even a guy like Jared to sit comfortably. They were cheerily red and ridiculously comfy; more than one overstressed client had actually fallen asleep in them. Jared had a steam cleaner in the back that he used once a week because it was pretty horrifying how much mess they could accumulate. 

The walls were painted in a sweeping gradient of vertical stripes that swung through the rainbow from blue on one end all the way to green on the other. Jared had procured a collection of wall crayons to let people draw while they waited; he checked periodically for bad language and inappropriate drawings, but let most everything else stand until he ran out of space and had to wash it all off so people could start again. 

The requisite informational posters about heart health hung on the walls, alongside all manner of random pictures that he'd picked up here and there over the years. The reception desk was made of the same rich oak as the coffee tables strewn randomly about the room and Adrianne had a bright collection of potted flowers spilling across the far side of it. 

So yeah, Jared loved his waiting room. He spent pretty much all of the time he wasn't actively working hanging out there with Adrianne and anyone else who happened to be around. Which was maybe not the most professional way to conduct himself, but Jared figured that 'professional' didn't really fit in with the rest of the décor. And he could be capable without being professional.

Adrianne didn't always agree with him on that score. 

"You do have an office you know," she said, which was true. 

"It's more storage space than office," Jared said, which was also true. 

It was a quiet Tuesday afternoon and Jared was lounging on the longest couch with his feet kicked up over the arm and a ring puzzle in his lap. He had a bunch of puzzles thrown in with the magazines and Lego sets in the bins under the coffee tables, though he never had much luck with any of them. "It's lonely back there, anyway."

Adrianne's expression was disapproving. "What is Mr. Olsson going to say if he comes in and finds you sprawled all over the furniture?"

"Probably he'll complain that I took the big couch." Jared abandoned the puzzle - honestly, he was questioning the 'novice' rating - and levered himself into a seated position so he could look at Adrianne over the back of the couch. "Don't worry so much, Adrianne. Our clients aren't going to run for the hills if they catch me acting like a human being instead of a heart-mending automaton."

"You can act like a human being without literally lying around on the job." 

"My mama would agree with you completely," Jared said, and kept grinning at Adrianne until her expression softened. "Look, I promise I'll get up as soon as someone shows u-"

The door swung open and what appeared to be a bundle of clothes masquerading as a person wandered in.

Jared waved. "Hi, Misha."

"Jared," said Misha, who was indeed a person despite all sartorial evidence to the contrary. He pushed a pair of ridiculously large aviator glasses up into his hair and flicked his attention over to Adrianne. "Mademoiselle." 

"Your Grace," Adrianne answered with a tidy little curtsy. She cast Jared a significant look and waited until he sighed and hauled himself off the couch, then turned her smile on Misha. "What brings you to our establishment on this fine day?"

"My feet," Misha said, with perfect gravity. Which probably meant that he was high; Misha was always impressively quick-witted, but he only got particularly literal when he'd just smoked a joint.

Jared had met Misha a couple of years ago when the man had wandered into Jared's clinic and, for no apparent reason, started talking to him about the merits of muffins versus cupcakes. Since then, Jared had grown very used to Misha's habit of dropping in whenever the mood struck him; Jared suspected that he enjoyed the company.

A single look at Misha was usually enough to convince people that he was homeless. Privately, Jared thought that it was highly unlikely that someone with such a perfectly maintained five o'clock shadow was actually living rough, but Misha seemed to enjoy being not quite homeless so Jared mostly left him to it.

He _had_ forced Misha to go clean himself up in the bathroom more than once, though. There was very little that was restful about bad smells, after all.

Jared rather liked him, truth be told. Misha was friendly, sociable and mad as a March hare. He had an outlandish story for every occasion, several of which were all the more terrifying for the fact that Jared thought they were actually true. According to Misha, he had been a White House intern, a jazz musician, a pre-law student, a successful surrealist painter and a small aircraft pilot. He'd also apparently experimented with pretty much every drug in existence while he was in college - which might have had something to do with the whole crazy factor - but mostly went for more recreational drugs these days. Not that it was always easy to tell.

"You're looking very rhomboid today, Jared," Misha said. His tone of voice made it clear that, whatever the hell it meant, it was intended to be a compliment.

Adrianne looked at Jared thoughtfully. "Are you sure?" she asked Misha, because the two of them had always got on like a house on fire. "He seems more octagonal to me."

Misha's eyes raked across Jared's face. "Ah yes," he said. "I could see my way through to agreeing with octagonal."

Really, Jared was glad that they liked each other, but they often made it very hard to tell if they were being serious.

"Well, I'm happy to be a polygon, anyway," Jared said, because he was nothing if not capable of rolling with the punches. It was a necessary skill when one was friends with Chad. 

"You're welcome," Misha said gravely.

"You want something to drink, Misha?" Adrianne asked then, pointing towards the side bar. "You've got your choice of water, coffee and pink lemonade today."

"Is all of the above an option?" Misha asked, drifting across the floor towards the offered beverages.

"Only if it doesn't bother you when Adrianne and I stand here and make horrified faces," Jared answered.

"I accept your terms." Misha proceeded to pour himself a concoction that made Jared glad they didn't use clear cups; he didn't think he'd be able to stomach seeing Misha actually drink that particular combination of flamingo pink and dun brown. 

Misha took a sip, smacking his lips thoughtfully.

"What's the verdict?" Adrianne asked.

"Fruity but deep. A good combination. The bouquet could do with some improvement though."

Adrianne shook her head in mock despair. "You sure you'd rather be out here than in the office, boss?"

Jared grinned at her. "Heck yeah." Mindful of the fact that he'd been banned from sprawling on the furniture, Jared settled for leaning back against the reception desk and crossing his legs at the ankles. "All the fun stuff happens out here. Also, I don't want to do my paperwork."

"I remember paperwork," Misha said. He'd wandered back over while Jared was talking and Jared was at once grossed out and reluctantly intrigued by the fact that Misha's cup was already half empty. Jared was resigned to the fact that he was probably going to try that combination out for himself before the end of the day. Because he was an idiot like that. 

"It's a plot," Misha continued, in a hushed tone of voice.

"Paperwork?" Jared asked, amused. "What kind of plot?"

"The sneaky kind?" Adrianne suggested. "Forces you to do work."

"The evil kind," Misha said. "Makes you hate work that you like doing."

"I dunno about that," Jared said. "I still really like my job. And I've got a _lot_ of paperwork."

"He does," Adrianne agreed. She dropped into a stage whisper to add, "But I do most of it."

Jared waved an absent hand. "You get paid to do most of it."

"Doesn't make it any less true, boss."

"I got paid to do the Ambassador of Kazakhstan's paperwork once," Misha said, sounding thoughtful. "Of course, it was in Russian, which made things a little complicated."

Jared and Adrianne raised a collective pair of eyebrows. Jared went to get them each a cup of coffee - sans lemonade - while Misha launched into a colourful account of his adventures with the Kazakh ambassador and, for some reason, a traveling Romani tribe and a pair of donkeys. 

Mr. Olsson arrived for his appointment right about the time where Misha was telling them about his daring escape out the embassy window with a folder of important paperwork in his mouth, and he insisted on joining them to hear the end of the story before his appointment. It pushed Jared's schedule back a good half hour, but Jared couldn't say he minded much. When the opportunity arose, it was always worth the effort of slowing down to enjoy the madness of life.

And, really, that's what Jared's waiting room was all about.

Later that same week, Jared's regularly scheduled program got thrown out of whack in a very unexpected way.

"Jared?" Adrianne said, and Jared glanced up from the needles he was cleaning to find her lingering in the doorway to the exam room with a strangely hesitant expression on her face.

"What's up?" Jared frowned, puzzled. "Is Mr. Tigerman _really_ early? Because I know he's not good with keeping track of time, but he's not supposed to be here for an hour and a half."

Adrianne bit her lip. "There are two police officers here."

Jared gaped at her. "What? Why?"

"They wouldn't tell me anything," Adrianne said, with a shake of her head. "Just that they want to talk to you."

"Because that's not ominous," Jared muttered. He put down his polishing cloth and got up. "Guess we'd better find out what's going on."

There were indeed two police officers waiting at the reception desk, their crisp, dark uniforms standing out starkly against the cheery tones of the room. 

"Jared Padalecki?" asked the first, a slim woman about Jared's age with blond hair pulled back into a severe queue at the back of her neck.

"That's me," Jared agreed. "What can I do for you?"

"I'm Lieutenant Alona Tal," she said. She gestured to the other officer. "And this is-"

"Chris?" Jared interrupted, surprised. Chris was a friend of Jensen's who played guitar in a local band; Jared had met him at _The Bishop_ on a handful of occasions. He was a good half foot shorter than Jared but more than capable of being absolutely terrifying when he wanted to be. "I didn't know you were a police officer."

"Yeah, well," Chris said, more gruffly than usual. "Every man's gotta have a day job."

There wasn't a whole lot Jared could say to that, so he nodded and coughed awkwardly. "So what can I help you with?"

"We have some questions for you, Mr. Padalecki," Lieutenant Tal said smoothly. "Is there somewhere more private would could speak?"

"Oh, yes, sure. Um, follow me."

Avoiding Adrianne's anxious glance - it wasn't as though Jared knew any more than she did, after all - Jared led the way back to his office.

Jared's office was an office only in the strictest sense of the word. Since he rarely used it for its intended purpose, the room had gradually transformed into a strange cross between an office, a records room and a storage closet.

There was a desk, at least, complete with a Jared-sized chair that was more often that not piled high with boxes when Jared had nowhere else to put them. The back wall was entirely taken up by the alphabetically labeled filing cabinets that ostensibly held the files on all of Jared's clients; the ones that weren't sprawled all over the desk, at least. The couch against the far wall was very difficult to use for its intended purpose because of the stuff all over it, most of which was the spillover of mending supplies that couldn't fit in the cupboards in the exam room. Still, it was a handy place for a nap if Jared stayed too late at work, as long as he cleaned it off first.

"Sorry," Jared said as he led the way through the forest of banker's boxes and paperwork. "I don't really use this room much. Here let me-"

"It's fine," Lieutenant Tal said, when Jared went to move the boxes of thread off the two chairs he had in front of the desk. "I'd rather stand anyway."

"You sure?" Jared asked. "Sorry."

Lieutenant Tal waved a dismissive hand. "Now then, Mr. Padalecki, we want to talk to you about your mending supplies."

"O-kay," Jared said, confused. "What about them?"

"Where do you get them?" Chris asked.

" _Cog Runners_ ," Jared said. "It's just round the corner on-"

"We're familiar with it," Chris cut in. "Anywhere else?"

"I- no, that's it." 

"Would you be willing to swear to this?" Lieutenant Tal asked.

"Of course. I've been buying from Jessica ever since I opened my own clinic." Jared crossed his arms over his chest, more than a little discomfited. "Am I going to need to?"

"You might," was all Lieutenant Tal said. 

Jared fought the urge to huff. Getting belligerent at the police wasn't likely to be a good idea. "Look, can I ask what this is about?"

"We have reason to believe that someone in the area is selling illegally acquired mending goods," Lieutenant Tal said.

"Illegal goods?" Jared frowned. "What kind?"

"Organics," Chris said shortly. 

Jared's frown deepened. It wasn't a particularly popular practice to use animal organics for mending these days, largely because synthetics and metals were more reliable and the animal rights activists tended to complain, but it wasn't illegal. About the only type of organic that was illegal was…

Jared's jaw dropped. " _Human_ organics? You think there are menders working with human organics?" His brain belatedly caught up with the implications of their presence here and he felt his face pale. "You think _I'm_ using human organics? You can't be serious!"

"Do I look like I'm joking?" Chris said. He did not, in fact, look like he was joking. 

"That's… the only time I've ever used any kind of organics was when we did animal materials in college! What _possible_ evidence could you have to accuse me of anything?!"

"You have an unusually high success and recovery rate with your mendings," Lieutenant Tal said, with an icy calm. "One of the best in the country, actually."

"That's because I'm damn good at my job!" Jared burst out. "And I invest in top quality supplies. _Not_ organics," he added, with heavy emphasis. "Ask any of my clients. Hell, you can consult my school references if you like. Or any of the menders I apprenticed under. I don't use organics."

"None at all?" Chris asked. There was more than a hint of challenge in his voice and Jared wondered if it was because he knew Jared and felt it was okay to push harder or if he was always like that. "I would have thought a mender with your reputation would want to use all the resources he had access to."

Jared shook his head. "It's too easy for the body to resist organics if they're not compatible. Synthetics, woods and metals last a lot longer. They're more effective in the long run, too. Organics aren't practical to keep, either."

Lieutenant Tal made a noncommittal sound. "I'm going to have to insist that we see where you store your materials." 

"You can search the whole damn place," Jared said. "Most of my supplies are in the exam room so they're easy to hand, but I've got stuff in here, as you can see," Jared waved at the boxes, "and there's a storage closet near the restroom. I can get you the inventory records if you need them."

"That would be appreciated. We'll want to see your accounts and shipping manifests as well."

"Right, yeah, of course," Jared said, with all the calm he could muster. "Adrianne, my receptionist, deals with most of that. If you give me a minute, I'll have her pull up my ledgers and financials for you."

"Thank you."

God, Jared hoped that everything was properly up-to-date. If he didn't get wrongly arrested for illegal mending, he was so going to pay more attention to keeping his books updated in the future.

He firmly put that thought aside and managed a smile. "If you don't mind, I'll show you the exam room first; I've got a client coming at two thirty and I don't want to disrupt his appointment if possible."

Lieutenant Tal nodded. "That's fair. After you."

Jared nodded and led them to the exam room. "You can go on in," he said, gesturing. "I'll just go talk to my receptionist about getting those files."

Lieutenant Tal and Chris nodded and filed past Jared into the room.

"Chris," Jared said as Chris passed him, and Chris paused to level him with a neutral look. "You don't really think I'm some kind of criminal, do you? I'm Jensen's friend!" Which was a bit of an exaggeration, but Jensen wasn't good at letting people get close, from what Jared had noticed, so Jared probably still counted. "You really think Jensen would keep talking to me if I was some kind of- of evil person?"

"What I think is that I'm not a fan of trusting Jensen's judgment," Chris said brusquely. "So if you don't mind, I've got a job to do."

Chris brushed by him without waiting for a response and Jared stared after him, caught entirely off guard. The sound of opening cupboards came from inside the room and Jared gave himself a shake before heading into reception to talk to Adrianne. The sooner he got Chris and Lieutenant Tal what they wanted, the sooner they'd be out of his clinic.

And, hopefully, the less likely it was that Jared was going to get arrested.

Jared did not get arrested. Lieutenant Tal and Chris took copies of his financial records and shipping manifests with them and warned him not to leave the state, which reminded Jared of every procedural cop show he'd ever watched. It was an effort not to giggle, though Jared suspected that was at least partly hysteria.

Adrianne was bursting with curiosity by the time they left, so much so that the door had scarcely swung shut behind them before she was dragging Jared off to the rarely used break room to grill him.

Jared answered her questions as best as he could, which wasn't really all that well. He was profoundly unsurprised when Adrianne's eyes flashed fire at the revelation that the police thought Jared was part of some kind of organics trafficking ring. 

"I should have thrown them out," she raged. She jabbed a finger at Jared. " _You_ should have thrown them out! Why the hell didn't you throw them out?"

"They're the _police_ ," Jared reminded her. "I'm pretty sure that throwing the police out is against the law."

Adrianne sniffed. "Not if they don't have a warrant."

"Oh yes, because demanding they come back with a warrant will definitely help the 'not guilty' verdict along. Hey, it'll be fine," Jared said gently. He rested a comforting hand on Adrianne's shoulder. "You and I both know that they're not going to find anything suspicious in our paperwork. You do way too good a job for that."

A touch of amusement lifted the corners of Adrianne's mouth. "So what you're saying is that I'm keeping your ass out of jail?" she asked. "Sounds like I deserve a raise."

"Pride in one's own work is the greatest reward," Jared said, glad to see Adrianne calming down. "We haven't done anything wrong, so we've got nothing to worry about."

Adrianne sighed. "I know. That doesn't make it any less…"

"I know," Jared said, when the word she was looking for wouldn't come. "But we'll be okay. They'll look through everything and see that we are totally above board and even more talented than we are good looking. And that'll be the end of it."

A smile that wasn't nearly as reluctant as Adrianne would have liked to pretend creased her face. "You know, in your case, it's not hard to be more talented than you are attractive," she said. "Guess it's a good thing you're an overachiever."

Jared mimed a swipe at her. "Brat. See if I ever try to cheer you up again."

"Aw, don't be like that, boss. It's sort of like a compliment anyway, isn't it? That you're so good at your job that they think you have to be doing something illegal to manage it?"

"Not the kind of compliment I really want to receive," Jared said dryly. "But I guess I can live with being scandalously fantastic."

"Good. Because you've got another three clients today and their hearts aren't going to sew themselves back together."

Jared sighed a heavy, overdone sort of sigh. "It's a good thing I love both you and my job because otherwise I'd never put up with this abuse."

"Whatever you say, honey." Adrianne patted Jared's arm. "Now go feed yourself and get washed up before your next client gets here. We're professionals, remember?"

Truly, Jared loved his job. No matter how much he might complain about the hours and the stress - both of which were the banes of a mender's life when they had a private practice - he couldn't imagine another career in the world that would have suited him better.

But that didn't mean that there were some days when he sincerely wished he'd decided to become a car salesman instead.

"No, the copper-platinum mix is better for ventricles," Jared said, phone wedged under his chin and shoulder hunched right up to keep it against his ear. His hands were full of threads that needed putting away and tools that needed disinfecting and he didn't dare look at the clock for fear that it would make him burst into very messy tears. "Straight platinum would just be a waste of money."

"Sounds good, but I'd like to hear you tell my client that," Aldis said, his exasperation coming through loud and clear. Jared could just imagine the faces he was making to go along with it. "She's always convinced that I'm chinsing out on her. Like I'm freaking cutting the good stuff to make a profit."

Jared fumbled a tray of cogs and bit back a curse when a handful clattered to the floor and scattered wildly. "Look just… just tell her that the best money can buy really is the blended plating. Say it's more expensive to refine precise blends than it is to make the pure stuff."

Aldis chuckled. "You and your silver tongue, man. You can spin anything, can't you?"

"Keeps me from wanting to strangle irritating people." The creak of leather drew Jared's attention to the exam chair and the person lying on it. "Gotta go, my client's waking up. You good?"

"Yeah, you're a lifesaver. Never would have even thought of using the copper blend. I'm taking you out for a drink this weekend. And don't even think of saying no!"

Jared smiled, glad Aldis couldn't see how harried the expression was. "I'll hold you to that. Bye, Aldis."

"Later days, Jar-pad!"

Jared's client made a confused noise deep in his throat, eyelashes fluttering. Jared chucked his phone at the countertop and tried to look at least a little bit like a qualified mender as he straightened his shirt and walked over. The spilled cogs would have to wait till later.

"How are you feeling, Mr. Sheppard?" he asked, as his client opened his eyes properly.

"Not sure where my arms went," Mr. Sheppard mumbled.

"That's just the last of the sedatives," Jared promised. "It'll be gone in a minute or so. Now, I just need to take your vitals, if that's okay?"

Mr. Sheppard managed some garbled form of assent, and Jared gave him a quick once-over to make sure everything was doing what it was supposed to. This was Mr. Sheppard's first appointment with Jared and, while it hadn't been a particularly intensive mending, Jared wasn't the type to leave anything to chance, especially with people whose insides he wasn't familiar with.

"Everything looks good," Jared said when he was done. "Your feelings will be a bit tender for a while, but that's normal. You think you can sit up?"

Looking considerably more aware with every moment, Mr. Sheppard nodded and levered himself into a sitting position, wincing only slightly at the pull on his stitches.

Jared walked Mr. Sheppard slowly through the aftercare instructions, both because it needed doing and because it gave the man some extra time to get his bearings. The knowledge of just how far behind he was running weighed heavily on Jared's shoulders, but he refused to rush. His clients deserved better than that.

Today had been one delay after another. Jared's very first appointment had been twenty minutes late thanks to the morning traffic. One of his consultations had gone on twice as long as he'd expected when the boy's parents got involved. Something that should have been a simple plating patch for another client turned into a full clockwork rebuild when Jared discovered that the wounds in her pulmonary artery had festered since her consultation. That one had pushed Jared back an hour and a half on top of his earlier hold-ups and so, although he'd skipped lunch, Jared was still scrambling to keep up. Adrianne had been on the phone all day, warning people that their appointments were going to be delayed. 

When he was finished with the instructions, Jared gave Mr. Sheppard a hand down from the exam chair and walked with him out to the waiting room. He absolutely did not whimper at the sight of the half dozen people waiting for their appointments.

"I can take that, Jared," Adrianne said, reaching out to take the SHEPPARD, MARK file from him. She flashed a bright smile at Mr. Sheppard. "Let's get you settled up."

"Whatever you say, love," Mr. Sheppard said, leaning in with a little smirk that was far more attractive than it ought to have been.

Jared slumped against the desk for a moment while Adrianne dealt with the money stuff, trying to ignore the gurgle of his stomach.

"Breathe, boss," Adrianne advised, not looking over at him as she handed Mr. Sheppard his credit card back and wished him a good day.

"You're asking for a miracle, I do hope you realize," Jared said to her.

"Breathing's surprisingly overrated," Misha spoke up, from where he was lounging on the floor with his legs splayed wide and his back against the side of one of the chairs. Mr. Morgan, who was sat in said chair, didn't seem particularly bothered by his presence.

"I feel like astronauts might disagree with you, darling," Mr. Roché said. He was stretched languidly out on the far couch, just that little bit too close to Mrs. Ferris and her daughter. They looked to be pretty okay with this state of affairs. "And prostitutes."

"It's been like this for the last hour," Adrianne confided to Jared, when the room dissolved into a discussion of the relative value of breathing in different professions. "Just be glad that Miss McNiven was already gone when Misha arrived."

Jared winced. "That would not have gone well." His stomach rumbled again and Jared sighed. "Right now, I'm hoping that eating's overrated too."

Adrianne smiled at him. "Actually, I've got a surprise for you." She glanced at the wall clock and made a face. "Except he's late, the unhelpful-"

The door chose just that moment to swing open and Jared looked over to see Jensen standing there with a massive carry box in his arms. A cardboard tray holding two cups of coffee was balanced carefully on top. 

"Jensen?" Jared asked, dumbfounded. He hadn't realized that Jensen even knew where his clinic was. "What are you doing here?"

"Hey, Jared. Special delivery," Jensen said, using one foot to shove the door wide enough to get in without dropping anything. "Ask the lady."

Jared looked at Adrianne.

"Figured everyone could use a pick-me up," she said, looking decidedly pleased with herself. "So I called Jensen and ordered some chocolate therapy."

"Since when do you do deliveries yourself?" Jared asked. "Isn't that what you have employees for?"

"Since it's a delivery for one my favourite customers who I haven't seen recently because he's actually been working for once." Jensen set the box down on the desk and lifted off the coffees so that Jared could remove the lid to reveal three tiers of Jensen's sinfully unhealthy whipped cupcakes. The divine smell of freshly baked goods assailed Jared's nose and he sighed happily.

"Marry me," he said without thinking about it, and fought the urge to flush when Jensen laughed.

"Sorry, Jay. I'd look terrible in a white dress." Jensen's tone was deceptively light and Jared wondered if the threat edging those words was as audible to everyone else in the room as it was to him. Menders tended to notice stuff like that.

"There's enough for everyone," Adrianne said to the room at large. "Thanks for being so patient with us."

"I'll put up with a lot of abuse for baked goods," Mr. Roché said, grinning. The room got to its feet en masse and Mr. Roché winked at Jensen as he sauntered over to claim a cupcake. "I do hope you realize that I'm going to love you forever now, darling."

"I'll always accept eternal adulation. Here," Jensen said to Adrianne, and handed her one of the coffee cups. "My treat. You too, Jared," he added, passing over the other one. "One of those ridiculous froofy things you like because you apparently need a regular sugar infusion to keep from spontaneously combusting or something."

"You're so good at making me happy," Jared said, and regretted it almost immediately; it rang a little too close to the truth for comfort.

He wasn't sure if he was relieved or disappointed that Jensen didn't even notice. 

"You alright there, Jared?" Adrianne asked.

Jared nodded, focusing on inhaling his cupcake to give himself a few seconds to regain his equilibrium. "I am now that I'm not dying of starvation. So whose appointment am I late for now?"

Adrianne gestured with a frosting-tipped finger. "Mr. Roché's. Mr. Lehne opted to reschedule his appointment for another day, so after that it's Ms. Boecher, then Miss Ferris and finally Mr. Morgan."

"Don't you worry about me," Mr. Morgan said, around a mouthful of cupcake. "I am perfectly happy to be cheating on my diet instead of getting a consultation." He smiled at Jensen. "You work in a bakery?"

"I own a bakery," Jensen corrected, with a charming grin that Jared recognized. " _The Cinnamon Star_. On Wilson Street, just below King."

"Well," Mr. Morgan said, smiling wider. He looked Jensen up and down with open interest. "I might just have to stop by sometime, if all of your merchandise is so… decadent."

Mr. Morgan's tone was subtle but not that subtle, and Jared was entirely unsurprised when Jensen's smile went immediately wicked.

"Oh, I'm sure we've got something to suit your tastes," Jensen said. "Why don't I give you my number, make sure you get exactly what you're looking for."

"That sounds like a gr-"

"You smell like vanilla," Misha said to Jensen suddenly, leaning through their conversation with an earnest expression on his face.

"Ah," Jensen said, looking openly taken aback. Jared hid a smile in the rim of his cup; Misha tended to have that effect on people. "That's good, I guess?" 

"It is most enjoyable," Misha confirmed. He reached into the box and picked up a second cupcake, then glanced at Jared with a raised eyebrow.

Jared waved him on. "Go for it. If I get stuck eating all of them, I won't be able to get out the door tonight."

"It's the shoulders," Misha said sagely. He lifted his hand - and the cupcake - to his brow in a sharp salute. "It is time I returned to my duties on the high streets. Those traffic cones aren't going to upend themselves."

"Definitely a design flaw," Adrianne said, grinning. She waved. "Bye, Misha."

Misha bowed to her. "Your Grace. Jared and minions. Farewell."

The woman with the blonde hair - Katherine Boecher, Jared assumed - looked up from her Blackberry. "He isn't here for an appointment?" 

Jared tilted his head thoughtfully at her. Mrs. Boecher was here for an initial consultation and, though he'd not yet had a chance to talk to her, Jared definitely didn't like the unnatural stillness of her face. Between that and the fact that she'd been willing to sit in his waiting room indefinitely instead of rebooking, Jared could easily tell that there'd been some severe damage done to her heart in the recent past. His bet was the death of a loved one - there was a particular stiltedness to death loss that was hard to mistake - but he wasn't discounting betrayal either. 

Jared made a mental note to look over her intake form after he'd finished Mr. Roché's work; he'd be able to tell easily once he took a look at her heart, but he preferred to be prepared.

"Misha just likes to drop in sometimes," Adrianne told Mrs. Boecher. "Apparently the building has positive energies."

Jared made short work of another cupcake and took a healthy slug of his coffee. He looked around. "Adrianne, where's the-"

A folder with ROCHÉ, SEBASTIAN written on it appeared in Adrianne's hand. "Got you covered, boss."

"You got chocolate on it," Jared felt compelled to tell her, and promptly ended up with icing on his sleeve when Adrianne smacked him. "Ready to go, Mr. Roché, or do you need to spend more time communing with the baked goods?"

"Mmm, as long as you can promise that there will be at least one left for me afterwards, I'm more than willing to let you do your magic."

"I'm sure Adrianne can handle that." Jared looked over at Jensen. "Thanks for the cupcakes," he said, trying not to sound too much like a fatuous fifteen year old. Luckily, he was too busy being distracted and behind schedule to sound properly ridiculous.

"You're the one paying for 'em." Jensen threw Jared a cheeky grin. "I should be thanking you for the free advertising."

"Then we'll consider ourselves mutually thanked." Jared noticed how close together Jensen and Mr. Morgan were standing, then jerked his eyes hurriedly away. He didn't want to know. "Whenever you're set, Mr. Roché," he said, coughing.

Mr. Roché turned to him with an exaggerated pout. "Really, darling, I've told you a thousand times to call me Sebastian."

"And I never listen," Jared said agreeably. "Come on. Let's see what needs mending today."

The rest of Jared's week was thankfully less mad than the beginning had been. A last-minute cancellation on Wednesday gave him the time to deal with some of the paperwork he'd been avoiding, which was good because Adrianne might actually have killed him if he'd left it much longer.

Adrianne snagged a date with the older sister of one of their clients, which Jared teased her about mercilessly. She put up with his needling almost gracefully, which was par for the course with them. After all, Adrianne couldn't expect to get away with all that blushing and twirling her hair and fluttering her eyelashes while Jared was around to see her do it. 

Jared let her leave early on Saturday, because even he knew that the female ritual of getting ready to go out took at least five times longer than was really reasonable. He fired off a text on Sunday morning to see how it had gone, to which she responded with an entire row of smiley faces. Luckily, Jared was secure enough in his masculinity to admit that he spent the entire day looking forward to Monday morning when he'd be able to watch her be all infatuated and happy. 

Only to have Adrianne stagger in looking gray-faced and weary in a way he'd never before seen.

"Adrianne?" he asked, striding across the room to meet her. "Christ, are you okay? What happened?"

The inevitable _do I need to kill your date_ went unsaid, but Jared doubted that Adrianne needed to hear it to know that it was there.

Sure enough, she gave him a shadow of a smile and shook her head. "Easy there, Rambo. The date was fine. Amazing, actually."

Jared frowned. "Then… what's wrong?"

"You read the paper today?" Adrianne asked, which Jared had not been expecting.

His frown deepened. "No, why?" 

With a heavy sigh, Adrianne shook out the newspaper she had tucked under one arm and handed it to him.

 **Heart Stealer Strikes Again!** shouted the front page, the title sprawling across the newsprint in solid, inescapable black letters.

"Heart Stealer?" Jared asked. He looked up with a grin. "Sounds like the bad guy in a cheap horror movie."

Adrianne didn't look amused. "Keep reading."

Starting to feel a little unnerved by her mood, Jared returned his attention to the article.

It didn't take long to figure out why Adrianne was so adamant that he read it.

 _City police are under fire due to allegations that they have been withholding information from the public concerning five potentially linked murders that have taken place within the last eleven months,_ the first line read. _The victims, whose names have not been released, died of blood loss after having their hearts removed; the hearts have not been recovered and sources say that the police are considering this the work of a serial killer._

"Jesus," Jared muttered. "A serial killer who cuts out people's hearts? Why the hell have the police been keeping this a secret?"

"To prevent public panic, probably." Adrianne sighed and propped her chin up on one hand. "Of course, now they're paying for it. This story's on the cover of every paper in the city - probably the whole state. People are totally going to be losing their jobs over this."

"Jesus," Jared said again. "I am totally walking you home from work every day until they catch this guy."

Adrianne looked somewhere between touched and exasperated. "I own a car, remember? You're the one with the hard-on for public transit."

"I could have a car if I wanted one," Jared said.

"I know you could, sweetie. But we have bigger things to worry about right now."

"Bigger than the fact that there's a crazy axe-murderer on the loose?"

"A problem for us. For the _clinic_ ," Adrianne said, when Jared continued to stare blankly at her. She gestured at the newspaper still creased under Jared's fingers. "Think about it for a second. Their _hearts_ are missing. Not cut out and left there for shock value. Missing. And the police were here a couple of weeks ago accusing you of using human organics in your mending. That's not a coincidence, Jared."

It took Jared a moment to piece together what she was saying and, when he did, he felt his face pale. "I, you- that's… you think they think _I'm_ a murderer?"

Adrianne nodded grimly. "Or buying human hearts from one, yeah."

"Me?!" It came out dangerously close to a squeak. "How could someone even think…? Seriously! It's insane! It's, it's slander! Or something! They can't do that!"

"I'm pretty sure they can," Adrianne said, almost gently.

The world seemed very far away all of a sudden. "This isn't happening," Jared said faintly. 

He went to sit, missed the couch by a good half foot and ended up on the floor, legs splayed comically in front of him. Jared stared at a cat in a top hat that someone had drawn on the wall opposite, fighting the urge to giggle uncontrollably. If he started, he wasn't going to be able to stop.

"Hey." Adrianne went to her knees at Jared's side, putting one hand against his cheek and turning his face towards hers. "You said it yourself: there's nothing for them to find. It'll be fine."

"But what if it's not? What if we're being _framed_? Or the police need a scapegoat? Or-"

Adrianne's hand landed on Jared's mouth and he obligingly shut up. "Breathe, Jared," she advised, which was probably a good idea. Jared sucked in a large mouthful of air and let it out slowly. 

"That's better," Adrianne said. She moved her hand and sat back on her heels. "You feel like getting off the floor yet?"

"Well you never let me lie on the couch," Jared said. It was a piss poor attempt at humour, but it did the trick; Jared could feel the heavy, hysterical tension draining out of the room and he took another deep breath, letting his heartbeat slow.

The tense line of Adrianne's shoulders eased as she rolled her eyes at him in an overdone show of exasperation. "Because lying on the floor is so much more professional. Up."

They both climbed to their feet and Jared forced himself to bring the newspaper with him so he could read the article properly later. Preferably in a few hours when it wasn't as likely to inspire a panic attack.

"Okay?" Adrianne asked.

Jared hesitated. "Is this… do we need to worry about this? Honestly."

Adrianne's expression was somber. "I don't know, Jared. I mean, we both know that they're not going to find anything wrong in our accounts, but if they're looking for suspects and they think we're suspicious…" She shrugged helplessly. "Without any evidence, the most they can do is keep a close eye on us, but-"

Adrianne trailed off, biting her lip nervously. The realization that he was making her even more upset by freaking out made guilt pang low in Jared's chest. He firmly told himself to get a grip; he wasn't helping either of them by acting this way.

"M'sorry, Addi. Didn't mean to lose it on you." He opened his arms. "Come here." 

She practically dove into the offered hug, squeezing Jared so tightly that he feared she might actually rupture something. He folded himself around her, letting his head fall to her shoulder.

"What do we do?" Adrianne asked, the words whispered against Jared's collar.

"We let them watch us, if they want to," Jared said, shaky but firm. "And wait until they leave us alone."

"And if they don't?"

Jared shrugged with a nonchalance he didn't feel. "We'll tell 'em where to stick it. We've got a couple of lawyers on the books; I'm sure I can hire one of them to help us out. And if not," he added, in a deliberately light tone, "maybe Jensen will give us jobs at the bakery. I'll wash dishes and you can bake cookies."

Adrianne smiled. "Sounds like a plan," she said, but it was a long time before either of them felt ready to let go.

Despite their best efforts, Jared and Adrianne were both unsettled and out of sorts for the rest of the day, so much so that several of Jared's clients asked if everything was okay. Jared couldn't explain what the problem was - not unless he wanted to unintentionally start a rumour that would wreak havoc on his business - so he put it down to a stomach bug and donned a surgical mask for the rest of his appointments.

Somehow, they made it to the end of the day, at which point Adrianne announced her intention to call up some of her girlfriends for a night of red wine therapy and rom coms. She invited Jared to come with, if he wanted, though she clearly wasn't surprised by Jared's refusal. Gay or not, Jared wasn't exactly a fan of chick flicks.

"You sure you're going to be alright?" Adrianne asked, as she packed up to go.

Jared waved a hand. "Don't worry about me. I'll be fine."

Adrianne gave him a look that was almost equal parts fond, worried and exasperated. "Don't stay here all night," she warned.

"I have no idea what you're talking about."

"Uh huh." Adrianne planted a quick kiss on Jared's cheek. "I'll see you tomorrow, boss. And you'd better have gotten some sleep or there'll be hell to pay."

"Yes, ma'am," Jared said, just a little ruefully. She knew him too well, sometimes.

The thing was, everyone had different coping mechanisms for dealing with stress: alcohol, exercise, meditation, smoking, whatever. For Adrianne, it was wine and rom coms.

For Jared, it was organizing his mending supplies.

Jared locked the front door behind her, flicked off the waiting room lights and headed into the exam room to get started. Sorting his mending supplies was a gargantuan effort at the best of times - he was a hoarder, what could he say? - which made it easy for Jared to get lost in the rhythm of opening cupboards, emptying cupboards, tidying cupboards, refilling cupboards and moving on to new cupboards. 

In the quiet of his clinic, Jared could let his furiously spinning mind slow down in time with the steady grip of his fingers as he rewound spools of thread, or the smooth glide of the cloth across metal plates and cogs. The hours ticked by unannounced until well past midnight. Jared didn't really notice.

A sudden, loud thump jolted Jared out of his reverie and he whirled towards the door, rattled and confused. The sound came again, and again, and Jared realized that it was someone banging on the clinic's front door, loudly enough to wake the dead. 

He untangled himself from a coil of thick umber thread - stability and wholeness - and set it down on the closest surface, then headed out into the waiting room. The light from the exam room spilled out behind him and across the black floor, illuminating the edge of the reception desk, a stripe of rose-coloured carpet and the front door, where a familiar figure was pounding on the glass with one upraised fist.

"Misha?!" Jared said incredulously.

When he caught sight of Jared, Misha started hammering even more frantically, hard enough to make the lock rattle. A garbled approximation of Jared's name echoed mutedly through the glass. 

Shaking his head, Jared walked over to the door and reached for the lock. "It's the middle of the night, Misha," he said, swinging open the door, "if you're high again I swear to G-ack!"

Misha's hand clamped down on Jared's arm and yanked; Jared went stumbling over the threshold and barely managed to keep from sprawling on his face when Misha started dragging him down the street. 

"The hell are you doing?" Jared demanded, trying without success to squirm out of Misha's hold. He was stronger than he looked. "Misha, the door, I didn't-"

"Later," Misha said, sounding serious enough to bring Jared up short. Misha never sounded serious. "No time."

"But-" Jared started, but Misha clearly wasn't listening. They were halfway down the street by this point and Jared gave up with a sigh. It would be easier all around if he just did what Misha wanted and saved worrying about the unlocked door for when Misha finally released him.

The city was quiet and lifeless with the night and the clatter of their hurried steps against the pavement was gunshot loud in the dark. Misha hauled Jared grimly along and Jared blinked when he realized that he recognized the route they were taking.

"Jensen's bakery is just up h-augh!" Misha took a sharp turn down a dimly lit alley and nearly sent Jared crashing into a wall.

"Could you stop that?! Seriously," Jared said, as they made their way through the thickly sprawled shadows. "Would you just tell me what's going… on… "

A body. On the ground. Right in front of them.

Jared stumbled to a stop, both literally and figuratively.

"Holy-"

"Don't just stand there," Misha said, tugging again on Jared's sleeve. "Help him!"

"He's alive?" Jared staggered to his knees at the guy's side, feeling wet warmth seeping across his jeans.

 _Blood_ , his brain told him unhelpfully. Jared fought down the rising panic in his throat.

"What should we…?" he asked, hands reaching out to not quite touch. The man was curled up on his side in the foetal position, face mashed into the floor and one arm sprawled limply to the side. The back of the shirt was pale and unstained but, even in the dim, Jared could see the creeping spread of dark blood around the curve of the man's ribs.

Misha dropped into a careful crouch beside Jared. "Help me turn him."

Between them, they managed to roll the man carefully onto his back. The body was slack and heavy, and Jared cringed at the wet, sucking sound the man's shirt made when it pulled away from the pavement. The man's head lolled back, the grasping light from the street providing just enough light for Jared to see-

_"Jensen?!"_

Horrified shock punched Jared's breath out of his chest and he stared, incredulous, at the familiar planes of Jensen's face drawn slack and still. Blood was smeared in the corner of his mouth and was dripping, ever so slowly, down the length of his frighteningly pale cheek.

Almost despite himself, Jared found his eyes drawn to the bloody mess on Jensen's chest. A large portion of the left side of Jensen's shirt had been torn away; the remaining fabric was blood dark and stiff with it. Jensen's chest was rising and falling in slow, shallow breaths that darkened the stain on his shirt. Jared shifted closer, trying to see what was wrong, but it wasn't until he reached out a hand to push aside the clinging fabric that he realized that the hole in the shirt, the hole where all the blood was oozing from, was right over Jensen's heart.

Jared froze.

"This is why I came to you," Misha said quietly. He sounded considerably calmer than Jared felt. "There was someone else here but they ran when they heard me coming. They took something; I couldn't see what."

"The heart stealer," Jared said, brain and mouth running away in tandem. "That killer who was in the paper. He must have attacked Jensen but-" Jared frowned. "But that doesn't make sense. If his heart was gone, Jensen would be d-d… you can't live without a heart. It's not possible! Dammit, I need to-" Jared pressed careful fingers against Jensen's blood-slicked skin and cringed when he felt the precise pair of incisions marring the flat surface of Jensen's chest. Whoever was responsible definitely knew their way around a scalpel. "Okay, that's not good." He went to pull back the skin so he could check the damage, but the ambient light in the alley was too faint to let him see what he was doing. 

Jared made a wordless sound of frustration.

"Do you have," he started, then checked himself and fumbled into his pocket for his phone. "Here," he said, thrusting it into Misha's hand. "Hold that up."

Misha got with the program quickly, and Jared tilted his shoulder out of the way so that the bluish light of the display spilled over Jensen's chest. Swallowing hard, Jared gripped the torn skin again, trying to avoid putting his gloveless hands too close to Jensen's insides. Even with the help of his cell phone, the shadows didn't skitter far, but there was just enough light for Jared to be able to see when he drew away the skin and looked carefully inside. 

The whole left side of Jensen's heart was missing. The rest was still beating.

A frisson of pure revulsion rolled down Jared's spine and he let go of Jensen's skin like it had burned him, flesh crawling at the sheer wrongness of a person with half a heart. "Holy Christ."

"Jared," Misha said, and Jared turned to him, sure that every one of his emotions was raw on his face. "You have to help him."

Jared stared at him, feeling lost and overwhelmed and terrified. "Misha, I… I don't know what to d-"

"If we leave him here, he's going to die," Misha said implacably. "We've got no time."

The faint slickness of blood coated the tips of Jared's fingers. The rise of Jensen's chest was dangerously slow and getting slower. They were in a dark alleyway with no light and God only knew what kind of grime piled in it and Jared didn't have anything on him besides his cell phone and a pocketful of change left over from lunch.

"Jared. He needs you."

Jared ran a shaky hand through his hair. "Shit, okay, we've got to get him back to my clinic. I can't do anything here. Can you get his legs?"

Misha nodded and they lifted Jensen carefully off the ground. He hung like so much dead weight in their arms, the hole in his chest and the blood on his shirt put on lurid display by the bow of his body.

"Try to keep him level," Jared said, grunting a little under the weight as he firmed his grip under Jensen's armpits. "We need his body temperature and heartbeat to stay as steady as possible."

Misha nodded, his mouth set in a thin line as they manouevered awkwardly out onto the street. The stillness that had unnerved Jared before was now a relief; he did not want to be caught walking around at dark o'clock in the morning with a probably homeless guy and a not quite dead body. 

It was a slow process that was not at all helped by the fact that Jensen's body felt heavier with every step. Every time Jared made the mistake of looking down, he saw the bloody mess over Jensen's heart and had to swallow down the bile that rose up in his throat. 

Eventually, Jared and Misha reached the clinic where they had to do an impressive juggling act to wrestle the damn door open without dropping Jensen on his head. Jared found himself eternally grateful that Misha hadn't given him the chance to lock the door before dragging him off.

Jared bypassed the light switch and bee-lined for the still-lit exam room. 

"In the chair," he said and they staggered over to settle Jensen down.

"Now what?" Misha asked.

"I need to…" Jared scrubbed up in the sink, absently noting the swirl of red blood against the stainless steel. His rolled up his sleeves and donned a pair of gloves on autopilot before sitting down at Jensen's side and pulling the cart holding his tools in close. He picked up a scalpel and a pair of forceps without thinking too much about what was happening. 

Every attempt to look up at Jensen's face made Jared's hands want to shake. Which he absolutely couldn't afford, considering that he was putting Jensen's life in them. He steeled himself against the impulse and focused on treating this like any other client or, better yet, like diagnostic exams back in college. 

Jensen's skin was tacky with drying blood and Jared made a mental note to wipe some of it away before he started mending. Provided there was anything for him to mend.

 _Not thinking about it_ , Jared reminded himself. He took a deep breath and peeled open Jensen's chest, bracing himself.

One look was all Jared needed to figure out why Jensen's attacker had left part of his heart behind. 

He wished it had been for any other reason in the world.

It had been broken once, Jensen's heart. The scar tissue was sickly yellow and brittle, threaded through with thick veins of granite black that paid mute evidence to the age and severity of the wound. Hairline fractures radiated out from the break, letting drops of blood bead up to the surface. Where Jared should have been able to see the complex flush of colours and emotions painted across beating muscle, all he found was dull, unrelieved gray that showed only the faintest hint that it even remembered how to feel. Jared was distantly aware that he was staring, horror and grief warring on his face.

How had he never realized that Jensen was hiding this kind of damage?

The average heart size of an adult human male was 300 to 350 grams, depending on the relative physical and emotional health of the individual. But Jensen's heart looked like it wouldn't have been much more than 200 grams even when it was whole; it was shriveled and limp, wasted thin in a way that made Jared feel abruptly sick to his stomach. Hearts weren't supposed to look like this. Hearts were supposed to be fierce, dynamic expressions of all the love and fear and hurt and joy inside a person. Not this… grim apathy.

Jensen should have had this mended years ago. There was no reason he couldn't have; Jared knew that Jensen's bakery was more than successful enough that he could afford a mending and, even if he couldn't, that was what the government plans were for. But Jensen had clearly opted neither to have the physical damage mended nor to attempt to come to terms with his feelings. And so the wound had festered and Jensen's heart had withered with it.

 _Well_ , Jared found himself thinking inanely, as self-loathing rose up sharp and fast inside him. Hearts were the one part of a person he was supposed to understand, dammit. _That explains why he doesn't like dating._

"Well?" Misha asked and Jared started in surprise. He'd been so distracted by the damage that Jensen had inflicted on himself that he'd all but forgotten Misha was there.

"I, what?" he managed.

Misha looked at him evenly. "What will you do?"

"I-" Jared looked again at Jensen's poor, pitiful heart, weakly pulsing out the last of his life. It would never survive long enough for Jared to build something to sustain it and they'd be able to do no more for him at the hospital. People weren't meant to live with half a heart, let alone one as broken as Jensen's. It wasn't possible. 

But Jared couldn't let Jensen die. He just couldn't.

Jared's own heart was pounding frantically in his chest, pumping blood hotly through his veins in a way that Jensen's probably hadn't in years since his heartbeat would have slowed over the years for want of a strong heart to keep it flowing. Jared had always taken good care of his heart and he'd never felt its strength quite so keenly as he did now when Jensen was dying of something that Jared's heart could have borne so much bett-

Jared stilled. 

A thought - a dangerous, idiotic, propitious thought - coiled in the back of his brain, tempting him in the worst possible way. But Jared couldn't. It would be morally grey at best and he stood a very good chance of killing both of them in the process. He couldn't.

And yet.

Jared looked at Jensen, at his pale, familiar face, at his bloody clothes, at the pulled back skin exposing the death sentence someone had carved out of his body. He thought about Jensen's smile and about the amazing fact that he still cared about what happened to the people in his life - sort of - even when his heart was in tatters.

And he realized that he'd already made his decision. God help him.

"Right, okay. Do you… you can stay, if you like," Jared said to Misha, who was still waiting, patient and placid. "Those couches are pretty comfortable."

Misha shook his head. "No need. I will go." His eyes shone with a creepy sort of intensity as he added, "I know you'll help him."

"I hope so," Jared said. His hands wanted to shake again. "I need to-"

"I'll see myself out." Misha gave an odd little bow. "Good luck."

Jared nodded, hardly listening any more. He headed for the cupboard where he kept the sterile needles and sedatives; he didn't like the idea of drugging Jensen when his heart rate was already so low, but the last thing either of them needed was him jerking awake while Jared was wrist deep in his chest.

A quick check of Jensen's frighteningly thready pulse gave Jared the cue for how much he needed and he gave Jensen the drug carefully, watching for any sign that it was doing more harm than good. Jensen didn't so much as twitch, which Jared took as both a good sign and a bad one.

"Come on, Jensen," he muttered. "You've got to give me a chance to fix this. Hang in there just a little bit longer, okay?"

Abandoning the empty syringe, Jared dove into his cupboards and started yanking, completely ignorant of where half the stuff ended up. After an eternity, he unearthed the small skein of gold thread that he'd tucked away for emergencies. Gold was the colour of purity, of miracles and divine intervention; Jared had never needed that more.

He hurried back to Jensen's side, already reaching for the scissors to cut loose the remains of Jensen's shirt. A few quick swipes with a medical sterilizer got rid of the worst of the blood and a local anesthesia numbed the skin around the incisions. Jensen didn't stir.

With shaking fingers, Jared unbuttoned his own shirt and stripped it off. He'd done minor mendings on himself many times before, so it wasn't as awkward as it could have been to give his chest the same sterilizer-anesthesia treatment and pull the mirror around to face him. He waited a few, painfully jittery minutes for the numbing agent to kick in, then picked up his widest scalpel and set blade to skin. 

The edge sliced cleanly through skin and muscle and Jared forced himself to proceed carefully as he pulled the gap wider and pinned the loose skin out of the way. His heart lay steadily in his chest, still thumping harder than usual, but not so much that it would distract Jared from his work. It would begin to even out before long at any event - it always did when he was mending. 

"Right then," Jared said. He glanced at Jensen's slack body and took a deep, fortifying breath. "Here goes."

It took nearly half an hour for Jared to cut his heart in half, cauterize the incision and extract the left side - carefully - from his chest. He felt the dull ache of loss the moment he pulled it free, but half of Jared's strong, healthy heart would manage much better on its own than Jensen's would. Jared could handle this.

It was beyond strange to be handling a beating heart instead of his cogs and plates, let alone something so large. Jared felt like he was holding a delicate, fluttering bird as he eased his heart into Jensen's chest and lined it up with the blackened edges of what remained of Jensen's. Jared threaded a silver needle - vitality and calm - on autopilot, all of his attention on where his stitches would need to fall to make the strongest bind possible.

Jared focused on the steady rhythm of prick, slide, pull as he stitched their hearts together, settling into the quiet place where the work was all he could see. The gold thread glimmered against dark flesh and Jared felt an absent sense of wonder at how smoothly it slipped in and out, obeying the command of his needle with powerful grace.

It could have been minutes or hours later when Jared made the last stitch and knotted the end of the thread, leaving a little extra hanging to giving the knot some room to stretch. The bloody needle went into the tray and Jared sat back, observing his work.

It was grotesque. Jared's half was a rich, fleshy red, healthy and hale and tinged at the edges with shy pink and unrequited purple. It all but dwarfed Jensen's half, which looked withered and pale in comparison. The gold thread glinted bright and strong between the two sides, holding them firmly together and stemming the trickle of blood. 

Jared heaved a great breath, not sure whether he was relieved, pleased, appalled at himself or all of the above. A quick glance up the length of Jensen's body showed that he hadn't woken, but Jared could already see the colour returning to his sallow cheeks as the sluggish rhythm of his pulse started to gain momentum. 

"Thank god," Jared said, slumping back in his chair like his strings had been cut. He'd need to sew Jensen up in a moment, and do his best to sterilize his chest cavity while he was at it, but he figured that he probably ought to deal with himself first.

Stripping off his gloves and donning a clean pair, Jared threaded a fresh needle and pulled the mirror back over to take a look at what he'd left of himself. His chest cavity looked distressingly empty with only half a heart in it, but Jared's pulse was still steady and his half heart didn't appear to be labouring any harder than it usually did. That would change in time, Jared knew, but for now it was in about as good shape as he could ask for.

Or it would be, once he stitched up the honking great wound he'd carved into it. And that would be the easiest thing he'd had to do all night.

Jared had sewn them both shut and managed to wash up and put away the majority of the supplies he'd tossed out of the cupboards by the time Jensen started stirring an hour or so later.

"Jensen?" Jared abandoned his work immediately and stood beside the exam chair, every nerve strung taut. "Jensen, can you hear me?"

Jensen's eyes fluttered open and he made a noise that sounded very much like 'warbelegahhh' as he winced against the brightness of the overhead light. His instinctive attempt to roll away made him jolt in startled pain and Jared reached out to bring him carefully onto his back again before he pulled the stitches.

"It's okay, Jensen," Jared said, in the calm, soothing tone of voice he used on his more distraught clients. "You're safe. Everything's fine."

Jensen blinked at him a few times and Jared could see awareness flooding back into those green, green eyes. "Jared?" he asked.

"Hi there," Jared said, too softly. He tried to cover it with a gently chiding grin. "About time you woke up."

Jensen made another muzzy, bewildered noise. "Wha's goin on?"

"You were attacked," Jared told him gently. "Do you remember anything?"

"I… someone… ripped my heart out?" Jensen tried, like he wasn't sure that was anything close to the right answer. He craned his neck to look past Jared and his entire body went taut when he registered where he was. "Oh."

Jared managed an almost-smile. "Yeah."

"Not a dream, then."

"I'm afraid not. Misha found you in an alley not far from the bakery."

Jensen's nose wrinkled in confusion. "Misha?"

"You met him here last week, remember? When you came by with those cupcakes? Dark hair, more than a little scruffy. Said you smelled like vanilla."

"The homeless guy?"

"Yes. Well, probably." Jared shrugged, a little helplessly. "To be honest, I've never been quite sure whether he's homeless or just really eccentric."

Jensen made a dismissive sound. "So how did I get here?"

"Misha came and got me and we carried you back." This smile came a little easier. "You're damn lucky I was here so late."

"So that's it then?" Jensen asked, in a tone of voice that Jared couldn't read at all. His expression was flat, uncurious. "I'm officially heartless?"

"What? No! That's not… your heart it kind of… split when they tried to take it," Jared said, carefully skirting around why, exactly, that had happened. Somehow, he doubted very much that Jensen would be happy to hear either a lecture on proper heart care and the lack thereof, or a monologue on how guilty Jared felt for not realizing what Jensen was going through. "You still have half of it."

"Oh, and that's _so_ much better." 

"Hey," Jared said. "It kept you alive long enough for us to get you here. Even I couldn't have done anything if you'd lost the entire thing."

"You make it sound like a set of car keys." Jensen struggled into a sitting position and Jared's hands hovered awkwardly, ready to help if Jensen needed it but hesitant to touch without an invitation. Inside Jared's chest, the thump of half his heart was hollow and worried.

Jared had made no attempt whatsoever to salvage Jensen's shirt and had instead draped a blanket over him to keep him warm while he slept. When Jensen sat up, the blanket slipped down towards Jensen's lap and put the meticulous lines of red stitches on his chest on open display.

Jensen looked down at himself, fingers ghosting close to the stitches without quite touching. "You did this?" he asked, not really a question.

Jared nodded. "Yeah." His voice was thicker than he would have liked. He coughed and tried again. "Yeah, I did."

"Red?" Jensen asked, glancing up at Jared. "What's that do?"

"Strength and passion," Jared told him.

Jensen's lips quirked. "Passion, huh? Guess I could always use more of that." 

_You don't know the half of it_ , Jared thought. He shied away from the memory and threw a critical glance over Jensen's hunched form and still-haggard face. "How do you feel?"

"Like I got my heart ripped out?" Jensen tried, though the snark was lackluster at best. He chewed on his lower lip, eyes distant. "I feel good," he decided finally.

"Define good." 

"Really good?"

Jared bit back a sigh. "Jensen-"

"What do you want me to say, Jared?" Jensen demanded, sounding peevish. "I'm not dead and don't feel like I'm going to become dead any time soon. Is that good enough?"

"No irregular heartbeat?" Jared asked. "Trouble breathing? Dulled emotions? Desire to eschew human contact for the rest of your life?"

"No more than usual," Jensen said and Jared let out a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding. "So what did you do?" Jensen asked. "Missing bits of a heart seems like serious business. Not as bad as it looked?"

"Oh, it was plenty bad." Jared turned back to putting his supplies away, deliberately focusing on anything that wasn't Jensen's face. "Luckily, I am very good at my job."

"So I've heard." Jensen flattened an experimental hand across his chest, no doubt tracking the steady thud of his freshly mended heart. "So am I part metal now? I hope you didn't use the good stuff - not sure I can afford your going rate."

"Not exactly," Jared evaded and it was an act of will not to cringe at how shifty he sounded. A practiced liar, Jared was not.

It was a sad testament to how much attention he paid to Jensen that he could actually _hear_ the man frowning at him. "Not exactly metal or not exactly expensive?"

Jared shrugged with a casualness he didn't feel, still focusing on slotting things onto the shelf. "Does it matter? I'm not about to charge you. I do expect a damn good discount at the bakery from here on out, though. Payment in trade and all that."

There was silence behind him. 

"Jared," Jensen said slowly, and Jared turned around to see Jensen staring at him with a dangerously watchful expression on his face. "What did you do?"

"I don't-"

"What have you done?" Jensen demanded, louder. He flailed his way off the exam chair before Jared could stop him. His legs buckled immediately, too weak after a night full of bodily trauma and sedatives to support him, and he pitched forward with a sharp, startled curse.

Jared was across the room in an instant; he caught Jensen under the armpits and hauled back, fighting to keep them both on their feet. Pain lanced across his chest as the strain pulled on his fresh stitches and Jared sucked in a quick, distressed breath before he could stop himself.

Jensen's eyes widened, in sudden, startled realization. A heartbeat of silence fell between them that Jared didn't like at all. Their faces were far too close together for Jared's peace of mind and he could feel the pebbled heat of Jensen's skin against his palms. And then Jensen's fingers were attacking the buttons on Jared's shirt and Jared panicked.

"Jensen, wait-" he tried, voice climbing sharply up the registers. He tried to twist away but Jensen followed doggedly afterwards, leaning against him in a way that forced Jared to stay put or let Jensen fall. "It's not what you-"

But it was too late.

Jared's shirt fell open with a surrendering shush of fabric and Jensen's entire body stiffened when he saw the neat rows of red stitches on Jared's chest, the mirror to Jensen's own. Jensen lifted a hand, fingers questing oh-so-lightly over the puckered skin, and Jared flinched involuntarily at the touch. Jensen jerked back like he'd been burnt.

"Jared," he breathed, soft and horrified. "What have you _done_?"

"You stupid, stupid _bastard_!"

Jared winced. "Jensen-"

"No!" Jensen yelled, angrier than Jared had ever seen him. "You don't get to do this, Jared! You don't get to go around putting part of your own fucking heart in my chest when I can't tell you no!"

"I know, and I'm sorry," Jared said, careful in the face of Jensen's fury. "God, Jensen, you know I would have asked if I-"

"What if you'd killed us both with your back alley mending?" Jensen demanded. "Huh? What then?"

Jared gritted his teeth on his own temper. "Then you'd have been in the same position and I'd be out of luck. I really am sorry, I truly am, but there wasn't any time. You were _dying_ , Jensen, do you get that?"

Jensen's lip curled into a sneer. "So you decided to cannibalize yourself for parts? That's some martyr complex you've got going on there."

"They're my parts. I can do what I want with them."

Jensen barked out a mirthless laugh. "Of course you can. Fucking selfish jacka-"

"Selfish?!" Jared repeated, helpless to bite back the anger rising hot and fast through his veins. He got right up into Jensen's space, ignoring the frantic pounding of his diminished heart. "I saved your fucking life! With a procedure that, as you've just shouted at me, was very dangerous and probably illegal, and-"

"Probably?" Jensen interrupted. "You did something that you _think_ might be illegal? How can you not be fucking sure about that?"

"Because I don't know if anyone's ever tried sewing two living people's hearts together before and, if they have, they've been pretty damn quiet about it!"

Jensen shook his head. "Unbelievable. Am I going to get arrested now because you felt like experimenting?"

"You think this was an easy decision for me, Jensen?" Jared demanded. "I gave you my heart!"

"Yeah, well no one asked you to!" 

Jared scoffed. "What, so I should have just let you die?"

" _Yes_!" Jensen roared.

Silence fell like a thunderclap, broken only by Jensen's suddenly harsh breathing and the muted buzz of the air conditioning. Jared stared back at him, wide-eyed and speechless.

Jensen's hands clenched and then deliberately relaxed, and Jared watched Jensen rein his anger in with obvious effort. 

"Can you reverse it?" Jensen asked finally.

Jared gave him an even look and said nothing.

Jensen huffed. " _Will_ you reverse it?"

That was an easy one. "No," Jared said. 

"Jared…" Jensen's tone was warning.

"I said no." Jared took a few deep breaths of his own. "You're actually asking me to kill you, you do realize that? If I undo this, you _will_ die. No second chances or miracle cures."

"Should've already died anyway," Jensen muttered.

"But you didn't. And I'm not going to hurt you." 

"I could get someone else to do it," Jensen said, almost a challenge.

Jared didn't snort derisively at him, but it was a near thing. "No, you couldn't. No mender in the world would agree to help a client commit suicide. Besides, you'd probably get the both of us arrested just for asking."

"Jared…" 

Jared raised his chin defiantly. "I'm not a murderer, Jensen. And I'm not going to let you make me into one. Now," he said, while Jensen was still absorbing that. "We've both had a hell of a night and I, for one, would like to get at least a catnap in before I have to open the clinic. Are you bunking down here or should I call you a cab? And don't you say a goddamn word about walking at…" Jared cast around fruitlessly for a clock and settled for, "whatever godforsaken hour of the morning it is. I don't care if you're going three doors down the street; it's not happening."

Jensen stared at him mulishly, and Jared sighed, abruptly exhausted. 

"Look," he said. "There's a couch in the office. Give me two minutes to clear it off and you can sleep there. I want to check your blood pressure too; your emotions seem like they're running a little," Jared paused, looking for a word that wouldn't make Jensen fly off the handle again, "deeper than usual. Because my heart-"

"Oh, wait, let me guess: it's better than mine?" Jensen laughed, harsh and unkind. "Surprise, surprise! All that self-sacrifice must be good for the soul."

"Of course it's healthier than yours!" Jared snapped back. "Hearts need looking after just like any other part of the body. And it seems like you haven't bothered with yours in way too long so, yes, mine's in better condition. You even remember the last time you were able to get properly mad about something? Trust me, you wouldn't be this angry with just your own heart."

They had another tense standoff, and Jared was not-so-idly calculating how much damage the exertion would do to Jensen's heart if he hauled off and hit him when Jensen's shoulders sagged. 

"Fine," he said. He struggled back onto the exam chair, his every movement stiff and angry. 

Deciding that discretion was the better part of valour right now, Jared simply nodded and went to get the blood pressure cuff. Jensen's skin was warm to the touch, though not enough to make Jared worry. Jared took his blood pressure quickly and efficiently while Jensen said there in stubborn silence.

"135/80," Jared said as he pulled the Velcro free to release the cuff. "A little high, but not outside the acceptable range for your age. It should level off as your body gets used to the… addition."

Jensen nodded and stood. "Wonderful. The office is straight through on the left?"

"Yeah, just give me a minute to clear off the couch. Oh, and before I forget…" Jared turned towards the counter to grab the small paper bag he'd put there while Jensen had been out. "Here."

"What's this?" Jensen asked, warily accepting it.

"Aftercare instructions," Jared said, feeling suddenly and inexplicably sheepish. "And some topical cream for the incisions. You should be able to take care of most of it yourself, but I'd like to do a check-in in two weeks to make sure that everything's healing up properly."

"Right, fine, great. Anything else?"

Jared nodded. "There's a risk of infection if the scalpel the… attacker used wasn't properly sterilized, so I'm counting on you to come in if you have any problems." He fixed Jensen with a level look. "I can count on you to come in if you have any problems, right?"

"Yes," Jensen said shortly. He arched an expectant eyebrow. "So where's this couch of yours?"

"Right, sorry, yes. Come on. Bring the blanket with you." 

Jared let them into the office and left Jensen looking around at all the mess with raised eyebrows while he focused on excavating the couch. It was a taxing undertaking. Jared was feeling tired right down to his bones and had to fight the urge to face plant onto the cushions himself. When he'd cleared enough space for Jensen to sleep, he stood and looked over. 

"Best I can do, sorry. The sound muffles pretty well, so you shouldn't need to worry about getting woken up by the noise if you sleep past opening. I think I've got a spare shirt in the break room, so I'll grab that for you. And uh," Jared fidgeted. "I guess that's it. I'll be out front if you. Need anything. Or whatever."

Jensen nodded curtly. "Fine." He paused, and then added, with obvious reluctance, "thanks."

"We'll figure this out, Jensen," Jared said impulsively, because he was both optimistic and an idiot. "I promise."

The expression that crossed Jensen's face at that was one that Jared knew he should have been able to recognize, but the weak thump of his half-heart apparently wasn't up to that kind of strain tonight. Or maybe not ever again, Jared realized, and shut down the thought as soon as he had it. One of them having an emotional meltdown was more than enough. 

"Sleep well," Jared told him. He staggered down the hall towards reception, more than ready to collapse into the first chair he saw.

Of course, when he got to the waiting room and clicked on the lights, he realized that there were bloodstains on the front door from where Misha had banged on it to get his attention. Jared cast one longing look at the couch, then sighed and went to find some Windex. 

By the time he'd scrubbed off the last smears and flushed the bloody paper towels down the toilet, it was pushing six. Jared dropped onto the couch in what could only generously be considered a controlled fall and snuggled down gratefully, determined to enjoy his few hours of unconsciousness to the utmost.

Jared's last thought as he dropped off - there and gone in an instant - was to wonder why Misha'd had so much blood on his hands before helping Jared carry Jensen back to the clinic.

It was two weeks before Jared saw Jensen again.

After he put a groggy, unhappy Jensen in a cab the next morning, Jared started avoiding _The Cinnamon Star Bakery_ like the plague, as much out of guilt as from the fear that Jensen would throw him out if he walked in. Jared didn't regret what he'd done to save Jensen's life - would have done it all again if he had to - but he did regret the fact that he hadn't given Jensen a choice in the matter. 

He wouldn't blame Jensen if he hated him for it, especially since Jensen was freshly equipped with a whole cadre of emotions that he wouldn't have experienced for a long time. Living in sudden Technicolor when he'd grown used to black and white was going to make Jensen overreact to pretty much everything until his body got used to the change. Jared didn't envy Jensen having to deal with that kind of emotional overload.

By contrast, Jared's half-heart didn't affect him as much as he'd expected it to. The worst part was the way he felt tired all the time, and no amount of sleep or coffee could help. He started finding himself staring into space with no real idea why he'd drifted off like that, but it wasn't anything he couldn't learn to function around.

For now, anyway. And Jared would just have to deal with it when things got worse.

Despite the ultimatum he'd given, Jared hadn't entirely expected that Jensen would listen to him about the check-up. He found himself sitting somewhere between relieved and surprised when Jensen strolled into the clinic ten minutes before close exactly two weeks later, as calm and charming as ever. He came with doughnuts, which Jared appreciated immensely; he hadn't got a proper sugar fix in a fortnight and it was making him cranky.

Jared made up some bullshit excuse for Adrianne about Jensen being there because they were going to a game that night. Jensen backed him up without missing a beat, then stood and chatted easily with Adrianne while they closed down the clinic. 

"Have a good time, boys!" Adrianne called as she left. 

The door swung shut behind her and Jared could actually see the amiability drain out of Jensen's face the moment she was gone. It made his chest pang.

Jensen turned towards him with a sharp, suspicious sort of frown. He didn't speak.

Which meant that it was up to Jared to be professional about this. "Come on," he said, turning towards the exam room and trusting Jensen to follow. "Let's get you looked at."

"How have you been feeling?" he asked as Jensen shed his shirt and perched on the exam chair. "Any trouble breathing? Tightness in your chest?"

Jensen shook his head. "Strained the stitches once at the bakery, I think, but nothing else."

"I'll take a look at them. Arm please."

Jensen let Jared take his blood pressure without protest and Jared was relieved when it wasn't quite so high as it had been before. He ran Jensen through a standard check-up, asking him questions about his health as he went. To his considerable relief, Jensen's post-mending recovery looked to be right on track. Even his stitches were holding well despite the stress.

"Everything looks good physically," he told Jensen, who looked neither relieved nor surprised by this information. Jared refused to let his tongue trip over the words when he continued, "how about your emotions? How have they been?"

Jensen barked out a short laugh. "Intense," he admitted, which is more than Jared had expected. "It's, I keep getting angry, mostly. And for stupid shit, too."

"That will level out over time," Jared told him. "Your body's just not used to having such a depth of emotions to deal with, so it's overcompensating. It's kind of like riding a bike up a hill: you have to work hard to get up the hill, but then when you get to the top, the same amount of effort makes you go so fast your feet can't keep up with the pedals."

"Nice analogy," Jensen said, with a hint of his characteristic dryness. "So it's not a problem?"

"Totally normal," Jared confirmed. He risked a tentative grin. "Just don't watch any sad movies for a while unless you want to cry your eyes out."

"Noted."

Jared coughed awkwardly. "Well, that means you're free to go." 

"Great," Jensen said and Jared started picking up his things, just to have something to do with his hands.

"So," Jensen said, focusing on the buttons of his shirt. "What now?"

Jared blinked at him. "What do you mean?"

"You've decided that I'm not about to die unexpectedly, so that means I'm stuck like this for the duration. What sort of stuff do I need to know?"

"It's… pretty much all in the aftercare package I gave you," Jared said, confused. "I can get you some more pamphlets on dealing with-"

"I meant for me specifically," Jensen interrupted. "I mean, fuck, Jared, I've got another person's - your - heart inside me. Are there any," he paused, licked his lips, "side effects I have to worry about?"

Jared frowned in thought. "There shouldn't be. We might not use them now, but menders worked with human and animal matter up until the turn of the last century. As far as I know, there isn't a whole lot different. Why? Are you-?"

"No," Jensen said immediately. "I just wanted to be prepared." He gave Jared a lazy glare. "In case there's anything else you're not telling me."

Guilt reared up inside Jared again and he slapped a weak smile on over it. "No, nothing else. I swear."

Jensen was watching him with his head cocked thoughtfully to one side. After a moment, he nodded, like he'd come to a decision. "Are we done here?"

"Oh! Uh, yeah, you're all set." Jared stepped back far enough to give Jensen a clear line to the door. He focused on keeping his smile solid so he didn't look like a kicked puppy. "Your stitches will probably be ready to come out in another few days - Friday would be good if you've got the time - and I want you to come back right away if anything seems off. But other than that, you're rid of me now."

Jensen nodded again. "Okay." 

His sneakers made no sound on the linoleum floor as he walked out and Jared turned his attention to putting away his supplies so that he didn't have to watch him go. 

"You don't have to avoid the bakery," Jensen said unexpectedly and Jared whirled to see him wearing an expression that Jared had never seen before. He suspected that that was happening on Jensen's face with increasing regularity these days. "I don't - I wish you hadn't done it, but I get why you did. I'm not forgiving you but that doesn't mean you have to disappear out of my life to avoid upsetting me. Okay?"

Jared stared at him, an absolutely ridiculous ball of happy relief in his chest. "Really?"

Jensen's mouth quirked into a strange little grin. "Really," he said, and it was so far away from the stone-faced anger he'd hurled at Jared before that Jared could have cried.

"That's," Jared started, then coughed and tried again. "That'd be good. Thanks."

"I think that's supposed to be my line," Jensen said. They both knew that he didn't mean it.

So Jared smiled and shook his head. "Only if you want it to be. Come on, I'll walk you to the door."

After Jensen's appointment, they returned to a sort of tender status quo that Jared found awkward by virtue of the very fact that it wasn't as awkward as it should have been. Jensen had apparently decided that the way forward was to pretend that nothing had happened at all and so he was treating Jared just like he always had. Because Jared was a sad bastard, he was just happy to have that much of Jensen's attention without it coming in the form of frothing vitriol.

Not to mention that he was glad that Jensen had said it was okay for him to go to _The Cinnamon Star_ again. He'd missed his baked goods.

The tiredness didn't go away and Jared quickly realized that it was only the first step in a slow, inexorable decline that he could almost have ignored if the results weren't so invasive.

Getting out of bed in the morning turned into a production that even Adrianne, who hated mornings with the fiery passion of a thousand burning suns, would have found excessive. Jared found himself getting distracted even more easily than usual and reacting much less enthusiastically to the things, positive or negative, happening in his life.

The scariest part was when it started affecting his work. Jared knew the theories behind mending inside, outside, upside-down and backwards, but it took more than mechanics to make a good mender. 

Mending was a craft, not a science. It depended on a mender's empathy, his creativity and his ability to determine, on a case-by-case basis, what his clients most needed to overcome the hurts they'd gathered. Jared's greatest strength had always been the empathy he had for his clients but, now that his emotions felt like they could use a good dusting, it was like that instinctive awareness of how a heart needed to heal was sleeping somewhere inside him that Jared couldn't find.

Jared started staying late at the clinic to read over his notes and client files, looking for elements and diagnoses that corresponded to the needs of his current clients. It worsened the weariness dogging his every step, but it made it easier for him to do his job, so Jared figured that the sleep deprivation was worth it.

More and more, Jared found himself gravitating to _The Cinnamon Star Bakery_ when he was feeling wrung out and needed a moment of peace to help him come to terms with the way his heart was slowing running down. 

Always before, comfort for Jared had been his parents' house, preferably as close to his mama as humanly possible, and, when he'd moved away, the quiet of his own apartment. He wasn't sure why the bakery was suddenly his happy place, whether it was because proximity to the rest of his heart actually made a difference to how he felt or he was pathetic enough that he just wanted to be around Jensen as much as possible. Regardless of the reason, Jared quickly grew used to this new part of his routine and looked forward to the time he spent at _The Cinnamon Star_ more than he would have expected.

And, as the weeks went on and the world grew quietly dimmer around him, Jared could only be grateful that he had somewhere to go to - someone to go to - when it all got to be too much. And if that made Jensen even more important to him than he already had been, well, Jared figured that kind of came with the territory.

"Get out of my shop, Padalecki," Jensen said, not looking up from the flour he was tipping into a measuring cup.

Jared made a noncommittal sound and let the door thump shut behind him. He dragged himself across the room and slumped down in one of the chairs, then tipped his head back and closed his eyes on a shaky sigh. 

There was a quiet 'poof' of flour falling into a bowl and then Jensen's voice, a little more attentive. "What's wrong with you?"

Jared thought about saying nothing, but figured that it wasn't really worth the effort. His tired heart was creaky enough without drawing this admission out.

"I had a consultation today for a little girl named Mandy," he said, peripherally aware that Jensen had set the bowl down and was rounding the counter towards him. Jared kept his own eyes fixed on the ceiling, ignoring the dull thump of his heart in his chest. "Eight years old. Child Services brought her in because she was abused by her parents and they thought she needed some heart care. She-" Jared's voice cracked and he swallowed hard. "Her heart's in tatters. A wreck. Rips everywhere, scabbed over and then opened up again. Whole sections riddled with black. I'm going to have to bolster most of the left side with gear work and god knows how much thread it's going to take to patch up the rest. I could use violet, which is good for mending familial damage, but there's so much wrong that I probably need something stronger like orange and that's not good for a little heart."

Jensen's hand settled on Jared's shoulder, sudden and heavy. He didn't speak, just let Jared soak in his presence. 

Jared drew a shuddering breath. "Eight years old. And she's going to have to have a metal heart for the rest of her life because her parents are monsters."

"It's better than if she couldn't get mended at all," Jensen pointed out. "You're giving her a chance to get over it, right?"

"Yeah," Jared sighed. "But it hurts to know that she needs it. And even with my help, it's going to be a long road to recovery. That's not the sort of thing you get over in a day, or a month or even a year."

"Kids are resilient," Jensen said. "I'm sure she'll bounce back. What's that about?" he asked then, with a nod towards Jared's hand which had crept, without Jared's notice, up to rub at the skin over his heart.

Jared blinked down at his hand, then offered Jensen a wan smile. "Just a tear. Guess I'm feeling a little wobbly today." 

"You can feel it when you get a tear?"

"Comes with being a mender, really. If I wasn't in touch with my own heart, how could I expect to understand other peoples'? Normally this wouldn't be hitting me this hard, but ever since…" he trailed off before he could finish that sentence, cursing internally. He hurriedly shifted the topic. "It's not a big deal. A little green thread and I'll be good to go."

Jensen frowned. "Who mends your heart?" he asked.

"Hmm?" Jared asked absently. "Oh, I do. It's never really needed that much looking after. And it's easy enough to fix small tears with a mirror and some patience."

 _How about when it's been cut in half?_ Jensen's expression said, and Jared knew that they were both relieved that he didn't say it aloud. That particular elephant in the room was growing bigger every day, it seemed, but broaching the subject was impossible when Jensen was determined to pretend that part of Jared's heart wasn't beating in his chest.

" _Percolate_ 's got those sissy frappés you like on special today," Jensen said then, in a deliberately light tone of voice. "Caffeine therapy works wonders."

"It does, does it? Guess I could give it a go." Jared hauled himself out of the chair and determinedly did not miss the warm press of Jensen's hand on his shoulder. "Can I get you anything?"

"Americano," Jensen said immediately, as though that had been his entire goal behind suggesting Jared get himself a drink. It very well could have been, knowing Jensen, though these days Jared was starting to have cause to wonder. There was definitely more to Jensen than his amiably distant exterior suggested.

"As you wish," Jared said, sketching a little bow with a smile that he didn't need to force. 

"Leave," Jensen ordered calmly. He turned back to the counter in clear dismissal. Jared didn't believe him for a second and it was with a light step that he went to fetch their drinks. The sooner he left, the sooner he could come back, after all.

And when Jensen 'accidentally' over-baked a beautiful cherry pie and gave it to Jared to take back to the clinic, Jared smiled and very deliberately didn't comment.

That weekend, Jared decided to get drunk.

"Not that I'm complaining," Chad said, as Jared sat down with two more beers. He was starting to lose track of how many it had been, which was a sign that the evening was progressing right on cue. "But since when do you like getting shitfaced? You haven't done that since college."

"I'm channeling my inner you," Jared said, taking a long drag of his bottle. "No work tomorrow; why not?"

Chad raised an eyebrow at him and Jared knew he wanted to push it further. Instead, he shrugged and accepted his own beer. "Speaking my language, fucker," was all he said. 

They'd been there for a good few hours by this point and Jared was steadily working his way to falling down drunk. He was quite looking forward to it, actually. The edges of the world were starting to feel hazy, which made it harder for Jared to notice how blunted his feelings had become. Which was just what he wanted. 

"Hey, hey." Chad elbowed him in the ribs hard enough to jostle Jared's beer and Jared swore. 

"Was that really nex- necses- … did you _have_ to do that?" he asked peevishly. He shook his hand, wrinkling his nose at the beer all over it. 

"Your gay soul mate's here by himself tonight," Chad said and, to Jared's horror, pointed openly to where Jensen was leaning by himself against the bar, flirting idly with the bartender. Just the sight of him in perfectly fitted jeans and a shirt that was definitely a size too small was enough to make Jared's pulse spike, especially with a night's hard drinking eroding his self-control. "Got enough alcohol in you to go ask if you can fuck him?"

"Chad!" Jared grabbed Chad's arm and tried to pull it down before Jensen saw. Chad was less than inclined to go along with him and they ended up grappling for several minutes before Jared gained the upper hand. 

Chad made a disgusted sound as he yanked himself free. "What the fuck is wrong with you?" he demanded, rubbing at his wrist. "Do you even have a dick? Because I'm _this_ fucking close to going up to that pretty cocksucker myself and telling him to get on you and that's gonna be really fucking awkward if you don't have one."

"Fuck off," Jared muttered into his beer bottle. "My dick is amazing."

"I'm glad to hear that," Jensen's voice said, from far too close, and Jared choked on a mouthful of beer.

Chad pounded helpfully on his back and Jared coughed as he looked up to find Jensen standing in front of their table with a beer in one hand and an amused expression on his face. 

"Jensen!" Jared managed, wiping a frantic hand across his mouth. God, this was embarrassing. "I, um, hi!"

"Hi yourself," Jensen said. He didn't wait for an invitation before sliding into the booth on Jared's right, close enough to make Jared's pulse skip.

Jared stared at him, completely at a loss.

Luckily, or perhaps unluckily, Chad suffered from no such crushing uncertainty.

"Chad," he introduced himself, thrusting out a hand. "This fucker's best friend. And you're Jensen."

"Yes, I am," Jensen agreed, returning the handshake. "Nice to put a name to the face."

Chad squinted at him. "Yeah? Could've done that a hundred fucking times over by now if you'd ever bothered asking."

Jensen made a sound that was meant to sound like a chuckle. "Fair enough. Better late than never, hey?"

Chad continued squinting at him, obviously unconvinced.

"I'll buy the next round," Jensen offered, which would go a long way towards endearing him to Chad. Sometimes it was nice to have uncomplicated friends.

Sure enough, Chad left off squinting in order to nod. "You do that."

Jensen grinned as he stood again, leaving his own bottle on the table. "Guard that with your life, okay?" he asked Jared, not waiting for a response before heading off towards the bar.

"Well fuck me," Chad said. "Never saw that shit coming. You'd better as fuck do something about this, Jay man."

Jared wrapped an absent hand around Jensen's beer and enjoyed watching the graceful lines and planes of Jensen's body as he leaned fluidly up against the bar. "Shut up, Chad."

Chad kept talking, undeterred, and Jared ignored him. Not an unusual occurrence. 

It wasn't long before Jensen was winding his way back to their table, a beer in each hand. Jared appreciated that view as well.

"Thanks, man. Here you go," Jensen said, sliding Jared's beer across the table with a speculative look that Jared couldn't quite parse. 

"Thanks," Jared said, draining the last of the bottle he was still working on as he accepted the new one. 

Jensen smiled. "My pleasure." He lifted his beer in a short toast. "Cheers." His bottle was only half full, which meant that Jensen's neck had to tilt back into one long, smooth column as he swallowed and Jared was far too drunk not to get thoroughly distracted by that. 

Then Jensen pulled the bottle away with a satisfied sound and licked a few stray drops off his lips, and Jared considered banging his head on the table until his libido knocked it off already.

"So," Jensen said, and he was back to look pleased, though Jared didn't quite know why. "Any particular reason why you're trying to drink each other under the table? Don't usually see you drinking so much, Jared."

"Been a rough couple of… times," Jared said, which was about as close to evasive as he could get right now. "Felt like taking a load off." He waved a hand. "Chad's always like this."

Jensen raised an eyebrow at Chad, who shrugged.

"If you're gonna drink, do it right. What about you?" Chad asked, with a hint of belligerence. Because it was Chad. "Don't usually see you here on your own."

Jensen shrugged easily. "Everyone cancelled on me. Which isn't so bad really. I was actually hoping to talk to Jared tonight," he said, with an emphasis that had Jared abruptly wishing he was more sober. "Like you wanted me to. If I needed you."

"Oh? Oh! I, uh," Jared looked at the small forest of beer bottles he'd amassed. "I think I've had a few too many to be doing any mend… um-"

"Don't worry," Jensen said. He winked. "Nothing too invasive, I promise." He glanced around the room. "This probably isn't the best place, though."

Jared was torn between listening for what Jensen was actually talking about behind all that innuendo and watching Chad's expression get exponentially smarmier the longer Jensen talked. _Boo-tay call_ Chad mouthed at him, proud as a parent, and Jared rolled his eyes. Only Chad.

"Jared?" Jensen asked, startling him back into focus. "You got somewhere more private we can go?"

 _The clinic_ , Jared's brain reminded him, because that was where they needed to be if something was wrong with Jensen's heart. This had nothing to do with Jared's bedroom. He nodded dumbly. "Yeah, we can-"

"Great," Jensen interrupted. He stood with an easy smile. "I'll go get us a taxi. Nice to meet you, Chad."

With that, Jensen walked off with a smooth, confident strut that had several people watching his ass appreciatively. Jared was definitely one of those people.

"Well damn," Chad breathed, breaking Jared out of his Jensen Ackles induced stupor. "Should'a known you wouldn't be able to close the deal yourself. Better go before he finds a better offer." He snagged Jared's half-finished beer. "I'll take care of things here."

"It's not-" Jared started, only to give up when his inner voice reminded him that explaining would be even worse than letting Chad think he was heading off for a booty call.

Chad leered at him. "You can tell me next time how he is in the sack. Bet he whimpers like a fucking girl when he's got a cock in him."

Actually, now that Jared thought about it, telling the truth had a certain appeal as well.

"Thanks, Chad," Jared settled for, climbing only slightly awkwardly to his feet. "I'll… catch you later?"

"Go forth and get laid, douchebag," Chad said, so Jared gave him a cheeky salute and wobbled to the door.

Jensen was waiting for Jared outside and brightened noticeably when he saw him.

"You always keep people waiting?" Jensen asked, nothing but gentle teasing in the words. He gestured to a taxi that was pulled up against the curb. "Come on."

They slid into the back seat and Jared started to give the address for the clinic.

"Wait," Jensen said to the driver, then, to Jared, "Not very subtle. You have stuff at your place, right?"

"Yeah," Jared said, because he did. True, the most of his mending supplies were at the clinic but his home setup was still more than enough to deal with nearly anything that didn't require a hospital or a new aorta. And he thought that Jensen would have been suffering a little more obviously if he'd been in that kind of trouble.

So Jared gave his apartment address, ignoring the smirk the driver threw the both of them, then sat in silence next to Jensen while the city slipped away past the window. Jensen seemed disinclined to talk and Jared didn't want to start asking questions while the cab driver might overhear. Jared felt decidedly more sober now than he had twenty minutes ago, although he still didn't think he was up to any major mending. If there was something really wrong, Jensen would have to wait for Jared to down a gallon or so of water first.

The cab pulled up in front of Jared's building and Jensen paid the man while Jared fumbled for his keys. Jensen hung close behind him as Jared let them in and led the way down the hall to his apartment. 

"Nice," Jensen said as Jared pushed open his door and clicked on the lights. Jared's apartment wasn't the Ritz by any stretch of the imagination, but it was a good size for him and he'd made a decent effort towards making it homey. He'd got a ground floor apartment for access to the yard, but then had always been too busy to get a dog.

"Looks kind of like your waiting room," Jensen noted as he walked into the living room and took in the bright red couches. "I like it."

"Same furniture," Jared admitted. He dropped his keys absently on the table and started to turn towards Jensen. "So, what did you-"

Jensen was right behind him, standing so close that their chests were nearly touching. Jared's body made an immediate attempt to jerk away, but one of Jensen's hands hooked around the back of his neck, keeping him close.

"J-Jensen?" Jared stammered.

Jensen's smile was dark and full of promise. "Jared. You know all that stuff I was saying? That you thought was me pretending to flirt so I could tell you there was something wrong with my heart?"

"Y-yeah?"

Jensen leaned in to press his lips against the convulsive bob of Jared's Adam's apple. "I wasn't pretending."

"B-"

Jensen's mouth swallowed the rest of Jared's protest, slanting warm and confident against Jared's lips. The hand around Jared's neck flexed and pulled him down to give Jensen the opportunity to deepen the kiss, his tongue slick and thorough. 

Jared managed a garbled half-groan that made Jensen hum with pleasure. His hands clutched spasmodically on nothing as he tried to figure out what to do with them, then Jensen nipped at Jared's lower lip, almost hard enough to hurt, and they flew up to latch onto Jensen's hips for support.

Jensen pulled back just enough to tease the line of Jared's jaw, the combination of teeth and tongue making Jared's toes curl. "C'mon, Jared," Jensen murmured. His other hand shifted around to press against Jared's lower back, holding him close. "Show me what you can do."

Jared gave a shuddering moan and, unable to resist, found himself obeying Jensen's command with a mix of instinct and dizzying arousal. He surrendered his mouth to the insistent press of Jensen's tongue while his hands shifted down to cup Jensen's ass and grind their hips together. Jensen's pleased groan made his cock twitch inside his jeans. 

Their kisses turned frantic, hungry, messy, and Jared felt Jensen's hands slide around to the front of his shirt and flatten against his chest.

"So fucking hot, Jared," Jensen mumbled, his breath hot against Jared's cheek. His hands tripped smoothly down the line of Jared's buttons and Jared hissed a little at the cool air against overheated skin as Jensen pulled his shirt open.

"Too busy being pissed to appreciate this last time," Jensen said. His hands roamed boldly across the planes and valleys of Jared's chest and he made a pleased hum. "Tragic."

"Jens-" Jared panted, still half-drunk and so turned on it hurt. 

Jensen was back to looking amused. "Yes, Jared?" He dragged a fingernail across one of Jared's nipples and Jared arched into the touch with a strangled yelp.

Jensen chuckled, sounding very pleased with himself. "Too easy, man. Where's the guy who gives as good as he gets every time I see him?"

Jared decided that he could play dirty just as well. He took decisive control of the next kiss, delving in and giving Jensen no choice but to surrender. His hands went from rubbing Jensen's ass through his jeans to snaking down the back of his pants and curving around warm skin while one of his fingers slid insinuatingly into the crease between Jensen's cheeks. 

Jensen shuddered hard and Jared felt a sharp sense of triumph when Jensen's hands left off their teasing to wrap tightly around Jared's shoulders, hanging on for dear life.

"You like that?" Jared panted between deep, drugging kisses.

Jensen pulled back to reveal green eyes blown wide and dark with desire. "You have to ask?"

Jensen shifted then, forcing Jared back step by inexorable step. Jared gave ground easily, too distracted by the living skin under his fingers to care much about what Jensen was doing.

Jared's shoulders hit the wall and he suddenly had all of Jensen plastered against his front, Jared's throbbing cock snugged neatly into the pocket of Jensen's pelvis while Jensen's cock seared a line of heat down Jared's thigh.

"Fuck," he muttered, before he could stop himself.

Jensen laughed, a low, throaty sound. "I hope so." He gave Jared a saucy wink. "But first…"

The heady clutch of Jensen's fingers vanished and Jared hardly had a moment to protest before Jensen was sinking gracefully to his knees, looking up at Jared along the length of his body with a quirked eyebrow that made it clear he knew exactly what he looked like when he was on his knees in front of Jared with his lips swollen and wet and his cheeks flushed with arousal. 

"Jensen," Jared breathed, incredulity mingling with lust into something profane and perfect.

Jensen didn't respond, just leaned forward to press his face right up against the heavy bulge in Jared's pants and inhale deeply. Jared did his very best not to pass out. The pounding of his heart was fast enough that Jared was dimly surprised that the poor thing hadn't surrendered yet.

"Mmm," Jensen hummed, opening his mouth to place wet, lingering kisses on the fabric. He continued doing that until the crotch of Jared's jeans was thoroughly wet, seemingly content to stay there on his knees and _not_ touch Jared's cock for the rest of the night.

Which Jared was absolutely not okay with. With a growl, Jared reached for his own belt buckle and pulled the leather free as fast as he could while he had Jensen Ackles mouthing at his cock through his pants. 

Jensen finally lifted his head long enough to give Jared the space to peel down his zipper, then sat back on his heels to watch as Jared pulled his cock out of his underwear. It jutted eagerly away from his body, precome already glistening at the tip.

"Nice," Jensen said. He licked his lips and leaned in until his breath was ghosting across the swollen head. Jared twitched wildly and Jensen smirked. "Oh yeah. Should've told me you had such a pretty dick, Jared. Would've done this years ago, Jesus."

Something about that caught stubbornly in the back of Jared's head and he struggled to think around the double assault of alcohol and arousal. 

At his feet, Jensen wrapped a hand around the base of Jared's cock. It was a firm, practiced grip that pulled a startled hiss out of Jared's throat and jerked him out of his haze just long enough to realize what was weird about this entire situation.

"Jens-" he tried, his efforts impeded by the oh so slow drag of Jensen's hand against sensitive skin. "Wait, what're we…?"

"Just go with it," Jensen soothed, like Jared was some kind of frightened virgin. "I know you want it."

Jensen pumped the length of Jared's cock and Jared's hands finally got with the program: one snaked down to catch Jensen's wrist, stilling his movements, and the other landed on Jensen's shoulder, shoving his head a safer distance away.

"Stop," Jared said, panting. He looked at Jensen's parted lips, still dangerously close to his dick, and hurriedly transferred his attention to Jensen's forehead. "What's going on here, Jensen?"

Jensen arched an eyebrow. "You need me to spell it out for you?" he asked, and Jared's heart sank when he finally, _finally_ recognized the seductive drawl in Jensen's voice. He'd heard him use it a hundred times on a hundred nameless conquests.

Gathering the tattered remains of his self-control around him like a shield, Jared squared his shoulders and tried very hard not to think about the fact that he was turning down a blowjob from Jensen fucking Ackles as he said, "no."

"No? You sure about that?" Jensen free hand came up to touch and Jared let go of his shoulder to grab that one too. Jensen looked up at him from under his eyelashes. "Do you like it better when I struggle? Because I can work with that."

Jared made an inarticulate noise in the back of his throat and shook his head, fighting the urge to close his eyes against temptation. God only knew what Jensen would do if Jared wasn't watching. "I'm serious, Jensen. Why are you doing this?"

Jensen's come hither look turned into an 'are you fucking kidding me' look instead. Jared really couldn't say he blamed him. "Uh, because I want to? What d'you think usually happens when a guy invites himself to your place? A racy cuddle?"

"That's not-" Jared bit the inside of his cheek hard, using the pain to ground himself. "Why are you doing this with me? Instead of some random guy like you always do?"

Jensen shifted back on his heels, his expression growing increasingly irritated. "Well, it _was_ because you're hot and a sure thing, but now I'm beginning to wonder."

Jared blinked at him, hands falling limply to his sides now that he no longer needed them to hold Jensen back. "I'm a what?"

"Oh, come on, Jared," Jensen said. "You really gonna try for denial now? Actually, you know what? No. Fuck this." Jensen came to his feet with a sharp, jerky movement, cheeks flushed with anger now instead of arousal. "I'd have thought a guy who fixed hearts for a living would be more down with his emotions but if you'd rather repress, you go right ahead. I'm leaving."

"Wait-" Jared started forward, belatedly realized that his now considerably less excited dick was still hanging out of his pants, tucked himself in and then started after Jensen. "Jensen, wait what are you talking about? It's not that I don't-" Jared laughed, a little sheepishly, "I mean, obviously, but that doesn't mean I want it like th-"

Jensen's answering snort was loud and derisive. "Yeah right. You're fucking gagging for it. Probably have been for years."

Jared gaped. "How do you…"

"Because I can _feel_ it!" Jensen snarled, his expression turning ugly. "In this stupid fucking heart you gave me!"

Jared froze in the act of reaching for Jensen's arm. "What."

"Oh, yes," Jensen said caustically. All trace of arousal had bled out of him, leaving righteous rage in its wake. "Looks like there are even more side effects to your illegal heart transfer than you thought."

"You, what do you-" Jared blinked. "I'm confused."

Jensen laughed, bitter and black horrifying. 

"Yeah, I'll just bet you are. How do you think I fucking feel? Oh wait, you already know. Because I feel every," Jensen stepped in and jabbed Jared hard in the chest, right over his heart, "fucking," another jab and Jared found himself being herded across the room again, step by step, "thing you do. Every pang of lust, every soppy bit of happiness, every moment of satisfaction, every everything!"

Jared froze, horrorstruck, suddenly enough that Jensen nearly walked into him. "You what?! Jesus Christ, Jensen, why didn't you tell me?"

"And what good would that have done, Jared? Hmm? You changed your mind about taking your heart back? Cause I don't think anything else is gonna do the trick unless you learn how to stop having feelings."

"I'm-" Jared swallowed thickly, feeling sick. "God, Jensen, I'm so sorry I didn't-"

Jensen held up a quelling hand. "Shut it. I don't need any more of your mopey guilt in my chest, thanks very much. At least the lust was fun for both of us."

"Jensen," Jared said. He licked his lips, a nervous gesture, and watched Jensen's eyes track the movement. "The, the lust, I didn't-"

"The fuck you don't!" Jensen exploded. "You're inside my fucking head, Jared - you can't lie to me. We both know you want this."

"Not like this," Jared said, softly.

Jensen crossed his arms over his chest. "Oh? And how is 'this'," he gestured up and down his body, "not up to your standards, pray tell."

"I want more than you're willing to give," Jared said. "And I'd rather have nothing than what you're offering."

"Right, whatever. I'm out of here."

"Jensen, stop it." Jared reached out as Jensen made to leave, not quite touching but obvious enough to make Jensen pause. "How long have we known each other? Don't you think that if all I wanted from you was a night in your bed that I'd have gone for it ages ago?"

"I think you're a fucking coward," Jensen spat. "For not asking then and for backing out now."

"You can feel my emotions, right?" Jared pressed, firmly ignoring the ache in his chest at that thought. "You know I'm telling the truth. I… I like you, Jensen. Don't you see?"

Jensen snorted. "All I feel is a whole lot of angst and sexual frustration. Getting laid would probably help."

Jared stared at him, hardly able to believe that Jensen was telling the truth. Even diluted and half there, Jared's feelings would have to be impossible to mistake for anything other than what they were. For Jensen not to be able to recognize affection and love for what they were…

"What happened to you, Jensen?" The words were out before Jared had the chance to bite them back and he knew they were a mistake even before he saw a vicious thundercloud spread across Jensen's features.

"You looking for some kind of sob story?" Jensen demanded, in a voice that bit and gouged its way into Jared's bones. "Some tragic tale of childhood abuse or youthful betrayal to make you feel better? To turn me into something you can fix?"

"I want the truth," Jared said quietly. "Or as much of it as you're willing to tell me."

"Yeah? Well, what I'm telling you is that it's none of your goddamn business and that I was just fine with the way things were before you decided to help." Jensen smiled nastily, meaning to hurt. "And that I couldn't care less if you 'like' me."

It was no more than Jared already knew, but hearing it aloud hurt a lot more than he'd expected. His heart gave a sickly twinge and Jared pressed one hand to his chest, panting through the pain. That was going to leave a mark, he knew, and all he could do was hope that only his half of his heart was affected by the hurts that he'd suffered since the split. The last thing Jensen needed was collateral damage on top of all the other shit he was dealing with. 

"Jared?" Jensen's voice asked, from what felt like very far away, and Jared dragged himself out of his head to see Jensen frowning at him.

Jared forced a wan smile. "It's fine."

"Bullshit."

"Yeah, well it's my bullshit. So don't worry about it."

Anger and pain mingled and melted together on Jensen's face. Jared would have bet a million dollars that he knew which emotion came from where.

"I really had no idea that something like this was even possible," Jared said, doing his best to let Jensen feel his sincerity. 

"Oh yeah, because an apology's really going to do the trick now."

"I'll tone down the… feeling things when you're around," Jared offered.

Jensen raised an eyebrow. "Have you _felt_ your emotions? It's like care and share day in kindergarten all over again. And about as subtle."

"Well, then you're just going to have to try and ignore them." Jared drew himself up with all the dignity he could muster when all he wanted to do was crawl away to his room and hide under the covers for a year or two. "Clearly you've got a lot of experience pretending other people don't have feelings." 

Jensen's answering smile was brittle. "It'll be my pleasure." He turned again to the door and this time Jared didn't stop him. "I'll see myself out."

The door closed not quite hard enough to count as a slam, and Jared's whole body sagged with a mess of conflicting emotions that he couldn't even begin to untangle. Jensen must have been having a field day with all that rattling inside him. Especially on top of his own feelings.

Jared went to the window and looked out to where Jensen was on his phone, pacing back and forth in front of Jared's building with sharp, angry strides. Jensen never once turned towards the building so Jared stayed where he was and watched Jensen pace until a taxi pulled up and he climbed in.

Jared watched as the cab pulled away from the curb, knowing that Jensen was on his way to some bar to find someone who would fuck him the way Jared wouldn't.

"Fuck!" Jared swore, and then again, "Fuck, fuck, fuck!"

He turned away from the window and faced the living room, seeing in his mind's eye the way he'd been leaning against the wall with Jensen at his feet, ready to make every one of Jared's dirtiest fantasies come true. 

But only for one night.

"Fuck," Jared said again, resigned this time. He scooped his shirt up off the floor and stalked to his bedroom, where he peeled off the rest of his clothes and fell into bed.

He took his cock in hand without even trying to think of anything other than the wet promise of Jensen's mouth, the solid strength of him under Jared's hands, the way he would have looked spread out on Jared's bed and begging to get fucked. Jared's cock, which had never really gone fully soft, responded enthusiastically and it was only a matter of minutes before Jared was spilling into his own palm with Jensen's name caught between his teeth.

Jared slumped, spent in more ways than one. He wiped his hand carelessly with a handful of tissues from the box on the bedside table and fell back against the pillow, staring up at the dark ceiling.

"Fuck," he said one more time, before closing eyes and trying to resign himself to sleep.

The next morning, Jared woke up hung over, heart sore, sexually frustrated and grumpy as all fuck. He spent the day schlumping around the house in a funk and failed utterly at trying not to wonder if Jensen could feel his emotions _all_ the time or just when he was nearby.

Monday was quite nearly as miserable, although Jared was grateful that the hangover was gone at least and being at work gave him something else to focus on. He did his best not to let on, but he was apparently a failure at that too, because Adrianne started giving him worried glances within ten minutes of Jared walking though the door. Jared bore her scrutiny as graciously as possible and threw himself into getting through the day without putting any of his clients' gears in the wrong way round.

Just after twelve, Adrianne leaned into the exam room with a gentle smile. "That's it until two," she said. "So you just chill out for a bit, okay?"

"Since when are you the boss of me?" Jared asked, aiming for his normal levity and falling rather short of the mark.

Luckily, Adrianne seemed willing to cut him some slack today. "Honey, if you haven't realized yet that I've always been the boss, there's something very wrong. I'm meeting Genevieve for lunch," she said then, her grin shifting into the soft expression that always appeared on her face when she talked about her new girlfriend. "You okay with watching the desk?"

"Yeah, sure," Jared said, gathering up the client files sprawled out around him. At least in the waiting room he'd have a desk to work on.

He'd only just started going through COHEN, MATT when the door opened and he glanced up to find Jensen lingering in the doorway, wearing an expression that Jared could only describe as sheepish.

Jared's jaw dropped. "Jensen?" he asked incredulously. "What are you doing here?"

If possible, Jensen's expression went even more sheepish. He brought his arm out from behind his back to reveal one of _The Cinnamon Star_ 's carry-away boxes. "I come bearing apology cupcake?"

Jared blinked.

Jensen walked over, set the box down on the desk and opened it to reveal a beautiful chocolate cupcake that was nearly the size of Jared's hand. "I called Adrianne and told her I needed to talk to you," he said, staring fixedly at the cupcake instead of Jared. "She said now would be a good time to come in."

"That…" Jared trailed off and shook his head. "Okay, I'm confused."

"I'm here to apologize," Jensen said. "For Saturday night. I shouldn't have treated you like a regular hookup-"

 _There's another kind of hookup?_ Jared wanted ask, but Jensen was still talking.

"-and I shouldn't have freaked out on you."

"That's not your fault," Jared said automatically, and Jensen's mouth twisted.

"You shouldn't keep forgiving me, man. It's not really helping either of us." Jensen sighed. "I should have told you what was happening."

"Why didn't you?" he asked, instead of the _yes, you really should have_ that wanted to escape.

Jensen shrugged awkwardly. "Didn't realize, to begin with. Thought it was weirdly easy to tell what you were feeling at that check-up, but I figured it was just part of the whole stronger heart thing. It wasn't until you started coming to the bakery again that I put the pieces together. Then, well I figured it was easier to keep things from getting weird if you didn't know about it. Plus-" Jensen hesitated, biting his lip in an unusual display of nervousness.

"Plus?" Jared prompted, trying not to push.

"It's… better when you're around," Jensen admitted, haltingly. "Easier to deal with all these damn emotions. Mine _and_ yours. So I didn't want you to stay away in some boneheaded attempt to 'spare me' from your angst. And don't even try to pretend that you wouldn't have."

Jared didn't bother denying it. "But on Saturday, you said-"

"I know," Jensen interrupted. "I told you, I was mad. I overreacted. That's why I'm here with an apology cupcake."

"And I thank you for the apology cupcake." Jared paused, then added carefully, "Can I ask what it feels like? To be… experiencing my feelings?"

"Shouldn't you know?" Jensen asked, snarky and defensive in a way that seemed automatic rather than deliberate. Jensen's main line of defense against everything. "They're your feelings."

Jared gave him a look. "Jensen. Please."

Jensen huffed out a thoughtful sigh. "It's hard to explain. It's… it's like I'm watching TV and the radio's on at the same time: I can deal with both, but if I pay too much attention to the radio, it drowns out the TV. Which is irritating as fuck. But it's too quiet if the radio's not turned up, which also sucks." Jensen paused. "You're the radio, by the way."

"Wow," Jared said after a moment. "That's… wow. I've definitely never heard of anything like that ever happening. Like, ever. Period, full stop. And that's the sort of thing that _someone_ would have written down if they found out."

"So what's so different with me?"

Jared chewed on his lip, thinking. "I'm not sure, but I think… it's because I'm still alive. People have been mending with organics for centuries, but not with organics from living people. I looked it up," he admitted, at Jensen's raised eyebrow. "And I couldn't find a single example anywhere of someone combining the hearts of two living people. Which makes that the big difference between you and everyone else, so it's probably what's causing it. Since my heart's still kind of connected to me, it means that _we're_ connected somehow as well, I guess?"

Jensen rolled his eyes. "I'm glad you're the expert here. I feel so much better now."

"Hey," Jared said. "I can only work with what I've got. And I only found out two days ago, if you'll recall."

Jensen made a dismissive sound. "So," he said then, in a rather different tone of voice. "If we're connected, what happens to me if something happens to you? Is your heart keeping both of us alive, or what?"

Jared raised an eyebrow. "Isn't that the plot of _Dragonheart_?" he asked, and startled a grin out of Jensen.

"Shut up. You haven't answered my question. Will it kill me when you die?"

"No," Jared said, not a doubt in his mind. "That part of my heart… belongs to you now, I guess is the best way of putting it. The state of the rest of me doesn't matter - in a physical sense, anyway."

"Oh." Jensen sagged in obvious relief. "You're sure?"

"Very sure," Jared said confidently. "Menders all through history used organics. We'd never have learned to mend at all if using organics from dead things killed people."

"Good to know." Jensen tilted his head towards the carry-away box. "You going to eat that? Cause I won't consider my apology accepted until you do."

There was something brittle about the way Jensen said it that made Jared suspect that he meant it more than he wanted Jared to think. Which made sense, in a way; Jensen seemed the type to rely on actions more than words when it came to the important stuff.

And Jared was probably a colossal fool, but he didn't hesitate before picking up the cupcake and taking a large bite of rich, chocolaty bliss. 

"Ngh, god," he groaned, eyes slipping closed in patent ecstasy. "I almost want to get in fights with you more often so you'll keep giving me apology cupcakes. This is fucking orgasmic."

"Don't press your luck," Jensen said gruffly. Jared slitted his eyes open to see a touch of pink tinting Jensen's cheeks. Which was kind of charming. "I don't make a habit of apologizing."

"Tragic." Jared devoured the rest of his cupcake and caught Jensen watching him with a quietly pleased expression.

"Hey," Jared said impulsively. "You know you can come here whenever you want, right?" Jensen cocked his head at him, openly skeptical, and Jared hurried on. "I mean, we've already got Misha showing up whenever Mars is in the ascendancy or whatever, and Adrianne's new girlfriend showed up twice last week. I won't always be able to say hi, but I'll be nearby, if you need to… if it makes you feel better. When I'm not at the bakery, I mean. You'll always be welcome here, Jensen."

"I'll think about it," Jensen said, in a tone of voice that totally meant yes. Jared felt a flare of triumph and refused to be repentant when it made Jensen give him a narrow look.

He couldn't help but think this was the start of something new, for both of them.

Jensen began showing up randomly at the clinic after that, often enough that Adrianne started teasing Jared about finally getting himself a Jensen-shaped boyfriend. Jared ignored her to the best of his abilities and was quietly concerned by how easy he found it.

But the blunting of his feelings weren't so severe that Jared couldn't push through it, or even that Jensen seemed to have noticed that anything was amiss. Of course, Jensen was used to having all the emotional sensitivity of a brick wall, so it wasn't like the bar was high. Terrible as it was of him, Jared couldn't help but be relieved by that. He didn't want Jensen to know. He doubted he'd take the news well.

All told, their new system of not-quite talking about it was working surprisingly well. Their days of successfully ignoring the emotional elephant in the room couldn't last, though. 

One day, while Jared was chatting with Adrianne and Jensen after having finished with his last client of the morning, the door opened and Chris strode in, wearing a forbidding expression that made Jared's blood run cold.

This couldn't be good.

"Chris?" Jensen asked, obviously confused. "What're you doing here?"

"Not looking for you," Chris said, not taking his eyes off Jared. "But you can be damn sure we're gonna be having a word about your taste in friends when I'm done with _Mr. Padalecki_ here."

"Do you have an appointment?" Adrianne asked sweetly, with a smile that meant she was more than prepared to rip Chris a new one if he gave her an excuse to do it. "Mr. Padalecki has a very busy schedule and-"

"Adrianne, it's okay," Jared said, because avoidance wasn't going to solve anything and Chris was being belligerent enough for the lot of them. "I've got some time now," he said to Chris. "Why don't we go talk in my exam room?"

Chris nodded shortly and strode off without waiting for Jared.

"The hell is going on?" Jensen demanded.

"I'll explain la-" Jared started.

"He thinks Jared's a murderer," Adrianne cut, which is not how Jared would have gone about it at all. Adrianne had always been a fan of the shock factor.

Jensen looked even more stunned. "What?!"

"Ask Adrianne," Jared said over his shoulder as he followed after Chris, heart pounding. 

Chris was stood in the middle of the room when Jared got there, arms crossed over his chest and a decided air of menace around him.

"We've found something that the victims have in common," he said, the moment that Jared walked into the room. 

"Oh?" Jared said, glad for once that his emotions were underperforming; he doubted that he'd able to keep himself calm for this conversation if his heart was in one piece. "What's that?"

Chris looked Jared square in the eye. "You."

"What?" Jared asked, sure he had to have heard wrong.

"Oh yeah," Chris said, with something between accusation and relish. "We looked into it. All of our vics had had mending work done on their hearts within two months of getting murdered. Care to guess where they got it done?" he asked, ironic innocence dripping off every word.

Jared changed his mind: half heart or no, there was no way he was going to manage to stay calm for this conversation.

"At your clinic," Chris said, without waiting for Jared to provide the obvious answer. Apparently Jared's input wasn't particularly required in this conversation. "Every. Single. One. Now what do you suppose that makes us think down at the station?" 

"That's nothing but conjecture," Jared protested, too loudly. He dropped his voice with a will. "What kind of serial killer would be stupid enough to attack his own customers, anyway?"

"I don't know," Chris said. The _you tell me_ was so obvious that he might as well have said it aloud. "You about to tell me that it's a coincidence?"

"That still doesn't mean that _I_ killed them! You've already searched my whole damn practice for illegal materials. Which you didn't find, because I don't fucking have any! What's next? A tax audit? Cavity search? You gonna start knocking down the walls?"

"If that's what it takes," Chris said evenly. 

"Are you even listening to yourself?" Jared demanded, waving his arms in short, angry jerks. "This is crazy!" 

Chris' expression didn't change. "You really want to get into this with me, Jared? Because I guarantee you'll lose. Someone is murdering people and using their hearts as mending supplies and you're our prime suspect. So if I was you, I might think twice about being so quite to den-"

"It's not him." 

Jared and Chris both whirled around to see Jensen leaning against the wall beside the door, as calm as could be. Jared hadn't even heard him come in.

Chris recovered first. "You sure about that, Jensen?" he demanded, in a tone that was a bizarre mix of derision and concern. "Because I'm sure as hell not about to take your word for it."

"I'm sure," Jensen said, not flinching. "Because he's the one who saved my life when this murderer of yours tried to kill me."

It was the first time in his life Jared had ever seen someone literally be shocked speechless. Chris' jaw dropped and his eyes looked like they were ready to fall right out of his head. Jensen stared back coolly, waiting him out. 

Jared watched Chris' expression swing from stunned to concerned and finally settle on blood boiling furious. 

"I'm sorry," Chris said, with a precarious sort of calm. "Would you care to repeat that?"

"I got attacked by the 'heart stealer' on my way home six weeks ago," Jensen said, with as much inflection as a weather report. "Jared found me and repaired the damage before it killed me."

Another heartbeat of silence. Jared held his breath.

"You fucking _what_?!" Chris exploded, loud enough to make Jared's ears ring. "What the fuck is wrong with you, Jensen? Why didn't you tell me? And you!" He rounded on Jared and Jared fought the urge to back away from a guy a good eight inches shorter than he was. "You're under suspicion of aiding and abetting _and_ murder one," Jared winced, "and here I find out that you're under the table mending for a guy who _apparently_ got attacked by a serial killer. And neither of you jackasses thought to tell anyone?!"

Jensen shrugged. Jared had to admire his cool. "What for? I didn't see anything, so I'm no good as a witness, and I didn't want to deal with the police or the press."

"You di- Jensen, it doesn't fucking matter what you did or didn't see. You're telling me that you're the only victim who's survived but it's too much of a hassle to tell anybody? I know you're a bastard but are you really that selfish?"

Jensen inclined his head, neither confirming nor denying. 

"Fucking- look. You've officially got thirty seconds to tell me how the _hell_ you're still alive. And don't you dare tell me it's because you've got a mender on call," Chris said, before Jensen could do much more than open his mouth. "Because it doesn't matter how fucking magic he-" a finger jab at Jared "-is, those people were all fucking dead the moment that bastard pulled their hearts out and unless he-" another jab at Jared "-is Jesus fucking Christ himself, there's nothing you can do about that." 

Chris' glare was loud in the awkward silence that followed. "Well?" he demanded, looking back and forth between them. "I can drag you both in for obstructing justice if you like."

Jared hesitated; he had no particular desire to go to prison, but this wasn't his secret to give. Torn, he glanced at Jensen.

Jensen sighed. "I always knew that badge was going to turn into a power trip. Go ahead, Jared," he said, with a put-upon wave. "He won't stop bitching until he hears the whole story."

"Right." Jared squared his shoulders and met Chris' narrow-eyed look dead on. "Jensen was still alive when I found him because the person who attacked him only took half of his heart."

Chris' brow furrowed darkly. "The killer's changed their M.O.?"

"What? No, that's not- no. Jensen's heart is a little-" Jared paused, groping for a word, "-brittle, so it broke when the killer tried to remove it and part got left behind."

"Jensen's been awfully cheery lately for a guy with half a heart," Chris said, apparently unbothered - unsurprised? - by the fact that Jensen's heart was in such shitty condition that it physically fell apart when someone touched it. "I wouldn't have thought half a heart was enough to keep someone alive."

"It isn't," Jared said without thinking, and immediately regretted it when Jensen's eyes snapped towards him with sudden, sharp focus. "Not on its own, I mean," he added hurriedly. "Reconstructive mending can pick up the slack."

Chris hummed thoughtfully. "And what kind of 'reconstruction' techniques are we talking about?"

"Clockwork, mostly," Jared said, thinking fast. "Metal plating sometimes, depending on the problem. I do it all the time for people who've lost bits of their hearts to other people." 

"And this is the same thing on a bigger scale," Jensen said, in a voice that was just daring Jared to contradict him. 

"Pretty much," Jared agreed, which was only a little bit like lying. Stretching the truth didn't count. "The more that needs replacing, the less likely it is that the heart will recover properly, but it's not completely unheard of." He caught Jensen's eyes, willing him to buy this. "As long as the heart's strong enough, it can recover."

"But it isn't," Chris said, and Jared jolted out of his staring contest with Jensen to find the man looking at the both of them with clear suspicion.

Jared blinked and did his best not to look overly untrustworthy. "If you don't believe me, I can get you some reports about the use of gears in men-"

"Cut the crap," Chris said irritably. "We all know that Jensen's heart isn't strong enough to power a light bulb. Fuck, I'm impressed it's kept him running this long, the way he treats it."

"Thanks for that," Jensen said dryly. 

"So I'll ask again." Chris leaned in close, somehow contriving to be looking down at the pair of them despite being the shortest person in the room by a good margin. "Why didn't you come to me when this happened? Cause all I'm hearing, Jensen, is that you should be fucking dead right now since there's no way that your heart could handle this shit, and here you are in the best shape you've been in since that colossal jacka-"

"Chris," Jensen said, whip-crack sharp. "Spit it out or fuck off."

"Things like that," Chris said, not missing a beat. "Didn't think you even knew how to get mad anymore. So you'd both better start talking before I haul you down to the hospital to get a second opinion on Jensen's recovery. Just to make sure that he's okay."

Jared felt the blood drain from his face.

"Now, what do you suppose is gonna happen if it turns out that it's not a whole ton of metal keeping Jensen's blood pumping, after all?" Chris asked, in an idle tone that was anything but. "Seems like someone could be in a whole lot of trouble. Especially a mender who's got a very good reputation and swears up and down that he doesn't use organics in his mending. Right, Jared?"

Jared stared at him, his mind gone completely blank.

"I told him to do it," Jensen said suddenly.

Jared whipped around to look at Jensen, sure that disbelief must have been written all over his face. 

"What?" Chris said.

"I told him to do it," Jensen said and he was clearly a much better liar than Jared was. His tone was firm and quietly confident, completely believable. 

Chris seemed to be having a hard time processing this. "You- you _told_ him to put someone else's heart in your chest."

"Only half a heart," Jensen said, as though that made any sort of difference. "And not explicitly, no."

"Oh?" Chris threw a glance at Jared, who stared back, helpless to stop where this conversation was going. "Then what did you tell him to do?"

Jensen shrugged. "Whatever it took to keep me alive."

Chris stared at him, shocked speechless for a second time, and the corner of Jensen's mouth quirked into something that was far too bitter to be a grin. 

"Come on, Chris. You know as well as I do that half of a heart wasn't going to cut it in my situation." Jensen lifted his hands in a 'what can you do' sort of gesture. "There wasn't exactly a lot of time, so it's not Jared's fault that his solution was a little unorthodox."

"A little…" Chris bit the word off with a curse. "Jensen, you are talking about using a _stolen_ heart to-"

"No, I'm not," Jensen said, cutting Chris' tirade off cold. "Nothing Jared used wasn't freely given." His eyes cut to Jared. "Right?"

Jared swallowed hard. "Right," he said. No matter what other lies Jensen was telling through his teeth, this was the one thing that had never been in doubt.

"Oh really? And just where did this 'freely given' organic material come from?"

Sucking in a fortifying breath, Jared reached up at tapped his chest, right over his heart. The incisions had long since healed but the phantom memory of them sparked a touch of pain against his fingers. "Me. It, I mean… it was mine. My heart."

Chris' eyebrows climbed up nearly to his hairline. "You did what now?'

"There you go. Organ exchange between two consenting adults," Jensen said, and Jared had to fight to keep his mouth from twisting at the phrase. He and Jensen had been in situations that required consent twice - with Jensen on Jared's exam chair, and with Jared pressed up against the wall of his apartment - and neither one could really qualify as consensual. "It's not illegal if it's freely given and freely accepted."

Jared wasn't entirely sure that was true, but Chris didn't seem to be paying attention to that part right now.

"You gave Jensen your heart," he said, sounding as though he wasn't sure if it ought to be a question or not.

"Half of it," Jared corrected. 

"So what's holding you together, then?"

Jared shrugged. "Gears," he lied. "Like I said."

"Why in God's name would you do that to yourself?"

"Isn't it obvious?" Jensen said. His tone was absent, as though the question was hardly worth asking. "Because he's in love with me."

Jared's world stopped.

"Come on, Chris," Jensen continued, careless of the way Jared's poor diminished heart stuttered in his hollow chest. "You must have noticed. He's not exactly subtle."

To make matters worse, all Chris did was nod. "Yeah. Didn't think you'd noticed, though."

Jensen shrugged. "Haven't you heard? My heart works better these days. It's easier to pick up on this sort of thing."

Jared's face felt frozen in a rictus of heartbreak as the numbness in his chest reared up, worse than ever, turning his vision gray at the edges. Chris and Jensen were still talking, probably about just what kind of idiot Jared was to give his heart away like that to someone who didn't care, but it was impossible to muster up the strength to pay attention. Jared found himself concentrating on the pinpricks of cold spreading through his chest and the idle curiosity of whether he was going to pass out.

"Jared?"

Jared came back to himself to find Jensen and Chris both looking at him.

"Fine," Jared said automatically. "It's all… everything's fine. Do you still want to arrest me?" he asked Chris.

The muted pity in Chris' expression wasn't something that Jared ever wanted to see again. "No. But that doesn't mean you-"

"Great, fine, wonderful. Then if you don't mind, I need my clinic back. I've got," he took a deep breath, "clients. To help. Jensen has my number if you need me."

Jared then proceeded to stare very hard at the wall until they got the hint and left, terrified of what he'd see in Jensen's eyes if he looked. He waited another five minutes, then ten, and finally made his slow way to the waiting room. 

Adrianne was full of questions Jared didn't have the wherewithal to answer. He managed to tell her that the police didn't consider them suspects any more, and then asked her to cancel the rest of his appointments for the day. He had a headache. He hadn't got enough sleep this week. He thought he might be coming down with something.

Adrianne expressed her concern with a combination of exasperation and chiding for running himself down like this, didn't Jared know better than to treat his body this way?

Jared manfully refrained from crying and promised to get some rest, thanks mom. Then he walked out of the clinic and right into the first taxi that would stop for him. He gave the address and stared at his hands until the taxi pulled up in front of his house.

Once he was inside, Jared locked the door, dropped his keys somewhere and headed straight for his bedroom. He laid down on the bed, shoes and all, and stared at the ceiling with a pillow clutched to his chest as though he could block the ache.

That night, Jared calmly melted down some copper plating - endurance and protection - and used it to fill the deep gash now running from his pulmonary artery right down into the ventricle.

He tried not to look too closely at the other hurts he'd gathered over the last six weeks: the puffy, swollen flesh; the ever-growing swathe of sickly green heartbreak; the splinters of black radiating out from the place where he'd cut himself in two; the nicks and scratches where he'd ached for his clients. Instead, Jared focused on the gleam of gold thread supporting his poor, crippled heart - _purity, miracles and divine intervention_ , he reminded himself - and didn't regret it.

Jared didn't go into work the next day. He passed the time alternately staring at the ceiling and rubbing the phantom ache in his chest, careless of the new stitches holding his incisions closed. He didn't generally have much trouble recovering from a mending, but he wasn't holding particularly high hopes that he'd bounce back quickly this time.

Thursday passed in essentially the same way, although Jared managed to eat something, at least. He ignored the ever-encroaching gray with a will borne of desperation.

He'd have missed the Friday as well, but he couldn't do that to his clients, not when he didn't have another mender lined up to send them to. Besides, Adrianne would probably come to his house and either kill him or drag him into work by his ear. 

"You look like shit," she said when he dragged himself in. Her tartness didn't do a good job of hiding the worry in her voice. "Everything okay, boss?"

Jared waved her off. "S'fine," he said, weaving his way up to the desk. "Some kind of bug. I'll get over it."

Adrianne frowned. "You sure? You've gone all gray."

"M'fine. Should have seen me yesterday, if you think this is bad." Jared peered at the neat stack of files on the desk and tried to pretend that he didn't feel like passing out on top of them. "Who's first?" 

The day passed about as well as Jared could have hoped. Being at work gave Jared something to focus on, thankfully, but he was slowly drowning in the realization that he couldn't keep up with the demands of his job. He earned well wishes and advice from essentially all of his clients, which Jared found at once touching and shameful. Still, it made him feel lighter and he found it easier to cope once he got properly into the rhythm.

Of course, that equanimity vanished like smoke when he looked up from making notes after Mr. Fuller's appointment and found Jensen standing in the doorway, watching him with an expression that said nothing at all.

"Jared," Jensen said, in a tone of voice that gave away just as little. "You got a minute?"

"One or two," Jared forced himself to say. "My next client's due at five, though."

"Adrianne told me. This won't take long." 

"Right, okay. So what's up?" Jared asked, with what he thought was a decent attempt at equanimity. He put down his pen and turned to face Jensen properly, leaning back against the counter. "Please don't say Chris has decided to arrest me, after all."

Jensen shook his head. "Actually, he wants your help."

Jared felt his eyebrows lift. "He what?"

"The victims are definitely all connected to you somehow," Jensen said. He sounded completely at ease, but Jared could see the way his eyes kept trying to drift away from him to stare at the floor. Jared felt a vicious twist of satisfaction that Jensen was just as uncomfortable as he was. "And if you're not the murderer-"

"If?"

"Chris' words," Jensen said. "If you're not, then the killer's probably using your records to find victims."

Jared blanched. "Oh god."

"So Chris thinks that you might be able to help figure out why these people are being targeted and, maybe, who the killer might go after next."

"Oh," Jared said. "Well, I guess I can, ah… do my best? Don't know how much help I'll be."

Jensen shrugged. "Right now, I think Chris'd be happy with anything."

"Since me being innocent means he hasn't got a suspect anymore," Jared said, too flatly to pass it off as a joke.

"Right." Jensen stood there awkwardly for a moment and Jared found himself wishing he'd just leave already and save Jared's heart the unwanted stress.

Of course, nothing had really been going Jared's way recently.

"I'm sorry," Jensen said.

Jared sighed. "No, you're not."

"I needed a reason that Chris would believe," Jensen continued, in a coaxing sort of tone. Jared couldn't help but think that it sounded a lot like his 'it's cheaper per truffle if you buy a box of ten instead of the singles' voice.

Jared chuckled without mirth. "The truth's handy that way, I guess."

Jensen went absolutely still. "What?"

"Just," Jared sighed again. "Just leave it, okay? I always knew where I stood. The important part is that you're still alive to turn me down. It's fine."

"I don't-" Jensen looked stunned. "You're actually in… love? With me?"

"I'm pretty sure you're the one who brought it up," Jared said, trying and failing at not sounding bitter.

"But I. I didn't really think." Jensen swiped a hand over his mouth. "Shit, Jared. How could you possibly believe that?"

Jared laughed. It was quite possibly the ugliest sound he had ever made. "It's not a matter of belief, Jensen. It's the way things are. And I'm very well qualified to diagnose love, believe me."

"I don't get you," Jensen said, sounding frustrated. "Why would you want t-"

"Because it's not something you choose!" Jared all but shouted at him. His feet carried him across the room towards Jensen, who backed away hurriedly from whatever expression was on Jared's face. "It's not something you control and it's definitely not something you can turn off!" 

Jensen's back hit the wall and Jared boxed him in, looming close enough that he could see the individual freckles scattered across the bridge of Jensen's nose. He lifted one hand and Jensen flinched when it landed firmly, but mindfully, on the centre of his chest and pinned him in place.

"Jared…" Jensen said, in a tone that was meant to be warning but came out more nervous than anything else.

"You feel this?" Jared demanded, pressing down hard enough that he could feel the suddenly racing beat of Jensen's heart. "That messy tangle of happiness and fear and sadness and hope? That's love. That's what I feel about you. No," he corrected himself. "That's part of what I feel. An echo. Imagine how much more wonderful and terrifying the real thing is."

Jensen stared at him, wide-eyed and breathing hard, and Jared abruptly found his anger draining away, leaving weariness in its wake.

"Love is the most wonderful thing, Jensen," Jared said softly. "Which is why it's you I don't get; why don't you want it? Not from me, not from anyone?"

Jensen said nothing for a long moment. "So are you going to help?" he asked finally, blank-faced dispassion mantling him like a cloak. 

Jared sighed and let his hand drop. "Yeah. Of course. Tell Chris to contact me."

"Right." Jensen waited for Jared to step back, then turned towards the door. "I am sorry," he said over his shoulder as he went. 

He didn't, Jared noticed, say what he was apologizing for.

Faintly, Jared could hear the sound of Jensen talking to Adrianne at the front desk, and a flare of hot, consuming rage boiled up inside of him. With an inarticulate growl, he drove his fist at the wall, punching it hard enough to make his hand hurt.

The pain didn't make him feel better. He hadn't expected it to.

"This doesn't make sense," Jared said, frowning at the file in his hands. He and Chris were camped out in Jared's office, going through the masses of paperwork they each had about the victims. Normally, Jared knew, this sort of thing would have happened at the police station, but they had good reason to keep his involvement on the down low: Chris because consulting a possible murder suspect wouldn't look very good on his record and Jared because he had no particular desire to be arrested for possibly illegal use of organics.

Jared didn't know if Jensen was being forced to deal with the police thanks to his status as the sole living victim of a serial killer, but Jared was glad that he, at least, was able to stay out of it.

"If it made sense we'd have caught the bastard already," Chris said from where he was sprawled out on the couch. He'd firmly staked it out as his territory as soon as they'd started, on the grounds that it was the only piece of furniture that didn't look like it secretly wished it was a bookshelf. Jared had to concede that he had a point.

"I mean it," Jared said.

Chris glanced up from the file he was reading. "What's your problem?"

"These people." Jared waved a hand at the papers he had spread all over his desk. "I thought you said the killer was selling their hearts."

"That's the theory." Chris put down the file and gave Jared his full attention. "You disagree?"

"It just doesn't add up. See here." Jared picked up the file on his left and tried to think of them as names rather than people he'd known, hearts he'd known. "Emily Perkins hardened her heart after she had a miscarriage, and it got so bad that parts literally stopped working. There's a dozen cogs in her heart." He put down the file and picked up the next. "DJ Qualls lost part of his heart to his high school crush, then got it broken by his girlfriend in college and, since he hadn't had the first one dealt with, the damage compounded. There are full sections of his heart that I had to mend with fillings and plating. Samantha Smith got badly burned during her divorce. The yellow stain has improved, but there will always be," he faltered, swallowed, "-would always have been scarring."

Chris' brow furrowed. "So?"

"So they're all like this," Jared said. "These people are - were - some of my most damaged patients. Their hearts would be completely unsuitable as organic material."

"For the synthetics then?" Chris guessed.

Jared shook his head. "Better to just steal them from a clinic. I mean, some back alley menders might be willing to mend with used materials, but no one I've ever worked with would dare. Too much risk involved. And I can't imagine that there's a big profit margin in that."

Chris frowned. "You're sure?"

"Completely," Jared said. "Whatever the killer is doing with their hearts, it sure as hell isn't selling them."

"Which means we're looking at a fetishist," Chris said. He slumped back in his chair. "Fuck."

It was Jared's turn to frown. "What do you mean? Fetishist how?"

"Any fucking way you want," Chris said sourly. "He could be eating 'em or putting 'em on a shelf or turning 'em into fucking shoes for all it matters. Which means we're stuck with a criminal whose motives are halfway impossible to predict which means he's gonna be halfway impossible to catch."

A thought struck Jared. "But, doesn't that also means that Jensen's heart might still be okay?"

Chris gave him a look. "I think you need to redefine your idea of 'okay', son."

"The heart can survive outside the chest," Jared said, feeling a muted sort of excitement rise up inside him. "Or, well, not all of it, that would kill you, but pieces can. If they're small enough, your heart can keep going on without them, more or less. As long as the majority of your heart is still inside your chest, any bits of it that aren't attached will keep beating right along with it."

"Seriously?"

Jared nodded. "There's historical precedence, too. The ancient Greeks considered it a sign of highest affection for someone to give pieces of their heart to their lover. The Romans actually dedicated parts of their hearts to Venus, the goddess of love. They kept them in her temples."

"Huh," Chris said, sounding thoughtful. "So you think that the rest of Jensen's heart, wherever it is, could still be working?"

"It's hard to say for sure but, the theory's sound. So yeah. Probably. As long as Jensen's alive, his heart should be too."

"As long as some psycho hasn't eaten it," Chris said dryly. "And you could put it back in him? If we found it?"

"I think so," Jared said. The thought made him feel slightly nauseous, but he pushed it aside, focusing on the problem at hand. "As long as it's in decent condition, it should be possible to use it like any other organic material. Jensen's strong enough now to survive me removing my piece of heart and sewing the original piece back in place." 

"And then you'd put yourself back together?" Chris said, making it sound more like an order than a question.

Jared managed a wan smile. "That'd be the plan, yeah."

"So now we get to hope that this psycho doesn't make shoes out of Jensen's heart before we catch him. This sounds so encouraging."

Chris' tone was positively dripping with sarcasm and Jared's smile became a little more genuine. Despite himself, he was starting to like Chris.

"You gonna tell Jensen?" Chris asked. His tone was idle, but the sharp assessment in his eyes told a different story entirely.

"Yeah," Jared said immediately. "He deserves to know. Give him some hope." _And an incentive to keep putting up with me_ , he didn't add. Chris didn't need to know that part.

The rest of the week passed in a blur of questions that didn't have answers, client issues that Jared couldn't solve and staying up until his eyes burned trying to prepare for the next day. Adrianne's worried looks were growing increasingly frequent and Jared tried very hard not to think about how much longer he'd last before he couldn't work at all. He wasn't about to quit until he had absolutely no more choice in the matter, even if was half-killing him.

Which was probably why Jared had never looked forward to a day off as much in his life as he did that Sunday. He was tired of being tired. 

He spent the majority of the day doing absolutely nothing, trying to give his heart a little time to recover. Eventually, though, he had to resign himself to the fact that he'd starve to death before anything else happened if he put off his grocery shopping any longer. When even the Kraft Macaroni and Cheese supply was running low, it was time to admit defeat.

While Jared was in the produce aisle, debating the various merits of green versus red peppers, his phone started ringing. Which earned him a few sideways glances, because apparently people weren't expecting a guy who looked like Jared to have Celine Dion's _My Heart Will Go On_ as a ringtone, but Jared was pretty used to that. _He_ thought it was hilarious, which was all that mattered.

Still focusing most of his attention on the peppers, Jared fumbled his phone free one-handed and thumbed the accept button. "Hello?" 

"Jared?"

Jared blinked. "Danneel?" he asked, surprised. Danneel was Jensen's second in command at _The Cinnamon Star_ and she was the kind of badass, whip smart lady Jared would absolutely have fallen in love with if he'd been straight. "I didn't know you had my number."

"Stole it off Jensen's phone." Danneel sounded tense, enough unlike her normal self that Jared frowned.

"Is everything okay?" he asked. 

"There's something wrong with Jensen," Danneel said, the words tripping out all over themselves in their rush to get loose.

Jared's blood ran cold. 

"Did he- what's, shit, I'm at the grocery store - I'll have to go home and get my kit." Jared abandoned his shopping cart and started striding for the entrance. "Is he still conscious?"

"Jared, Jared, stop. That's not why I called."

"Then… what's wrong?"

"I don't know! A customer came in and Jensen went to help her and I don't know what she said to him, but now he's hiding in the back and he won't say anything to me and I thought-" Danneel took a deep, audible breath, "I thought you could help."

"Danneel," Jared began uneasily. "I don't think Jensen's going to want to talk to me any more than you."

"Yes, he will," Danneel said, with a steel in her voice that was more than a little terrifying. Jared loved Danneel, but fear was very much a part of that love. "Right now, you're probably the only person he'll talk to."

Jared didn't dare ask what she meant by that; whatever the answer would be, he wasn't sure his heart was ready for it. "I'll be there in twenty," he promised and hung up with her gratitude echoing in his ear. 

It actually took him closer to fifteen minutes, mostly because he promised the cab driver an extra $20 if they got there with as little attention paid to speed limits as possible. He nearly knocked the bell right off the door when he charged in, which he would have wished he could feel poorly about except the tight, worried expression on Danneel's face made it clear that the haste was well deserved. She was helping a customer when he walked in and she gestured to the 'Employees Only' door without a word. Jared nodded and headed through.

He found Jensen in the office, which was worrying in and of itself. Jensen didn't avoid his office the way Jared did, but he usually preferred to be in the staff kitchen, especially when he was upset. Jensen was slumped over in one of the guest chairs with his head in his hands, unmoving. Jared was by his side in an instant, though he resisted his instinctive urge to gather him up in a massive hug and squeeze him until he squeaked.

"Jensen?" he asked instead. "You in there?"

Jensen didn't answer, didn't so much as twitch, so Jared laid a tentative hand on his shoulder, contact without pressure. This sort of thing, at least, he knew how to deal with.

"Danneel called me," he said, using the same gentle, easy tone he'd used when Jensen had first woken up with part of Jared's heart in his chest. "Said you were upset."

"Shouldn't," Jensen mumbled, the word garbled by his hands.

"Shouldn't what?"

"Shouldn't have called you."

Jared bit his lip against the instinctive sting of the words and firmly pushed those thoughts aside. That wasn't what Jensen needed right now.

"Well, you've got me anyway. Now, I can sit here quietly and keep you company, if that's what you want, or you can talk to me and we can work together to figure this out."

There was silence for a long moment, then, "S'your fault," Jensen muttered, so low that Jared could hardly hear him.

Jared fought back a bigger twinge. "What?"

"This is all your fucking fault!" Jensen yelled, head coming up to reveal red-rimmed eyes and a face twisted in furious pain. "You and your stupid love and your stupid martyr complex! None of this would have happened if you hadn't… if you hadn't…"

"Jensen…" Jared cast a frantic look at the closed door, hoping that none of this was filtering out to the store.

"There was a reason I wanted a heart that didn't work," Jensen said, his voice thick with misery. "But now I'm stuck with half of _yours_ and it seems like all it knows how to do is make me fucking miserable."

Jensen's chair clattered to the floor and he got right up in Jared's face. "Now I've got to deal with all this…" his lip curled up in a wicked snarl, "-this baggage that you've saddled me with and I can't even hate you right because all I can feel is how fucking sad it makes you to see me unhappy. And now _this_ happens and I can't even think and I hate it!"

Jensen seized the front of Jared's shirt in both hands and hauled him in until they were practically nose-to-nose. "I don't _want_ to care, Jared. I don't want to care about you or myself or any other fucking thing on this planet so why the hell couldn't you just leave me alone?!"

His voice echoed like a gunshot, fading slowly into stillness.

"I'm sorry I've hurt you," Jared said quietly. He looked into the face of Jensen's anger and willed everything he was feeling to show in his face as well as his heart. "I'm so, so sorry. You know it's the last thing I'd ever want to do. But don't ask me to be sorry that I saved your life. I can't ever be sorry that the world has you in it."

Jensen was trembling. "Don't-"

"Jensen," Jared said. Ever so slowly, he brought up his hands to clasp Jensen's arms, not holding but holding on. "You can survive this."

Abruptly, all the fight went out of Jensen's spine and he curled down into himself, his hands still fisted tightly in Jared's collar as though his grip was the only thing holding him up. His head thumped against Jared's chest, over the beat of his heart.

"It's like being drunk," he said, so close that Jared could feel the heat of his breath brushing his collarbone. Jensen's voice was choked, raw. "Everything's too sharp but fuzzy on the edges. Sometimes it hurts so fucking much I can't breathe."

"Okay," Jared said, making a quick decision. "I'm going to take you home, okay? No more work today."

Jensen didn't answer, staring at the buttons on Jared's shirt while his hands clenched rhythmically in the fabric, and Jared decided that he didn't need Jensen's permission for this. "I'll be right back, okay?" he said. "Sit down for a bit; I've just got to go talk to Danneel."

Jared prised Jensen's gently hands loose, righted his fallen chair and then manhandled him into it. Once he had Jensen settled, Jared hurried out of the office and headed back to the bakery proper.

Danneel was still neck deep in customers, but she turned away from the chocolate-covered pretzels she was packaging to give Jared a hopeful look.

"I'm taking him home," Jared said and watched the tension in her spine ease. "Do you know his address?"

Danneel nodded. "Sorry, Jim," she said to the man she was helping. Jared would continually be impressed by how many of their repeat customers Jensen and Danneel knew by name. "Jensen's coming down with something, so Jared's come down to sort him out. Do you mind hanging tight for a minute?"

Jim waved her off. "You go right ahead. That boy works too hard. Needs to learn how to stop running every once in a while."

"Thanks, Jim," Danneel said, with a grateful smile. "I'll be right back. Come on, Jared."

Danneel led the way into the staff kitchen, where she grabbed an order pad and scribbled down Jensen's address. "You want me to call a taxi?"

"That'd be great," Jared said, distractedly. He gaze drifted towards the office without his permission.

"How is he?" Danneel asked, following Jared's look. "I thought I heard yelling."

Jared winced. "Sorry," he tried, only to have Danneel wave that off.

"Don't be. Just take care of him."

"I will," Jared promised. "Do you know what happened?"

Danneel spread her hands helplessly. "All I know is that a woman came in looking for him. Jensen sent me to take some brownies out of the oven while he talked to her. She left before I got a chance to come over, but it didn't look like they were fighting or anything. Then Jensen totally shut down: wouldn't say a word about who she was or what she wanted. Just came back here and refused to come back out."

"Well shit," Jared said and Danneel nodded feelingly. "Sounds like I'm going to have a hell of a night. You get back to work," he said, gently. "I'll get Jensen home safe."

"Thank you," Danneel said. "Really."

Jared shrugged awkwardly. "Don't mention it," he said, before going to get Jensen.

Jensen was still right where Jared had left him, which was unsettling. Jared plucked up his courage and headed over, laying his hands on Jensen's arm. "Come on, Jensen," he said. "Let's get you home."

"Hate you," Jensen said mildly. 

He was docile enough as Jared got him out of his chair and led him out the back door and around to where Danneel's promised taxi was waiting for them. Jared bundled Jensen into the cab, read out Jensen's address to the driver, then slumped back in the seat and tried not to worry too obviously.

Clearly that was going to go well.

Jensen's house wasn't what Jared had been expecting.

It was large, first of all - far too large for one person. It was on a quiet little street a good half hour's drive away from the bakery, which made Jared wonder why Jensen had chosen to live so far away. Jared had picked his apartment building precisely because it was well within walking distance of his clinic. 

Jensen seemed to revive slightly when the cab pulled up outside; he wandered up the driveway while Jared paid the driver and was already unlocking the door by the time Jared caught up to him.

Jensen obviously spent a lot of time taking care of his house. The grass was lushly green and immaculately tended, there was a fresh coat of paint on the window trims and the covered porch was swept to within an inch of its life. The inside looked tidy but lived in, and Jared looked around curiously, torn between a childish desire to snoop through everything and the need to keep an eye on Jensen. Now that he'd successfully got Jensen home, he wasn't really sure what his next step should be. Food? Sleep? Action movies?

Luckily, Jensen was way ahead of him on that score.

"Alcohol," Jensen decided, kicking off his shoes and heading deeper into the house without waiting for Jared. "Lots of alcohol."

Normally, Jared wasn't a fan of self-medicating with alcohol but, in this case, drinking actually seemed like an exceptionally good idea. It would blunt the jagged edges of Jensen's emotions, which would help him calm down, and, if they were lucky, might loosen him up enough to start talking, which Jared could tell he needed to desperately. He'd been holding his heartbreak in for far too long.

So he followed Jensen into the den and watched as he bee-lined for a cabinet against the far wall. Jared was privately impressed that Jensen had both a den and a proper liquor cabinet. The room was done in dark hunter greens and pale wood, with a very comfortable looking leather sofa set dominating the space. It was all, Jared noticed, considerably more expensive than anything Jared had in his apartment. Possibly than all of his furniture put together. Apparently _The Cinnamon Star_ did much better business than Jared had suspected.

Bottles clinked as Jensen rummaged and Jared gave into the urge to peek at the few photographs hung artfully on the walls. He recognized Chris and Jensen arm in arm at the beach in one of them, looking young and, in Jensen's case, decidedly twinky. There were several pictures of people who looked enough like Jensen that Jared figured they had to be family. There wasn't much else.

Jensen made a triumphant sound and Jared jerked eyes guiltily away as Jensen hoisted an expensive looking bottle of dark amber liquid. "Single malt scotch whiskey," he said. "21 year old Glenfiddich. $240 a bottle. Was saving it for a special occasion but," a fluid, stinging smile, "I don't seem to be having any of those lately."

Jared's heart twisted. "Jensen-"

"Get the glasses," Jensen ordered, in a tone of voice that Jared wasn't about to disagree with. He sat himself down on the couch and placed the bottle deliberately on the coffee table in front of him. "This stuff's too expensive to drink out of the bottle." 

So they drank. Jensen averaged two glasses for Jared's every one, but Jared kept an eye on both of them to make sure they weren't going too overboard. He needed to be mostly sober for this, Jared suspected, and Jensen needed not to pass out.

Jensen didn't say a word for the entire first two-thirds of the bottle and Jared curbed his own impulse to fill the silence. The click of the bottle returning to the coffee table after each refill and the shift of the leather couch were the only sounds as the sun tracked through the windows and spilled the end of the day across the floor.

"She offered me a job," Jensen said suddenly. 

Jared put down his glass. "The lady at the bakery?" he asked and Jensen nodded. "Like a custom order?"

"No." Jensen threw back the rest of his drink. His tongue swiped the final drops off his lips as he reached immediately for the bottle. "A sales and marketing job."

That, Jared hadn't been expecting. "A… what?"

"I never went to culinary school," Jensen said, and it was hushed, like a secret.

Jared was starting to think he'd walked into the wrong conversation. "Really?" he said after a moment. "I'd never have guessed. You're really talented."

"I bake when I'm stressed," Jensen said, slurring the words just slightly. "Desserts all over the kitchen. Got lots of practice."

"I twine thread," Jared offered. Jensen raised an off-kilter eyebrow and Jared shrugged a little sheepishly. "When I'm stressed. I twine thread."

"Huh. I bake. Not what anyone thought I'd be doing with my $100,000 degree. Plan B. See that?" Jensen pointed with one finger at a photograph on the other side of the coffee table that Jared hadn't noticed. "S'the day we opened our firm."

"Firm?" Jared asked. It was a candid photograph that showed Jensen standing shoulder to shoulder with a good-looking guy several years older than him. He had short dark hair and the whitest Colgate smile Jared had ever seen. The both of them were wearing suits - Jared took a private moment to appreciate how well Jensen wore his - and they were obviously at some kind of expensive dinner function. The photographer had caught the guy with the smile in mid-sentence: his face was animated and he was gesturing expansively with one hand. Even in a photograph, Jared could feel his charisma. Jensen was listening with a grin on his face and a fondness in his eyes that Jared had never seen before. They were standing very close together and Jared could tell by the crook of Jensen's elbow that he had his hand pressed to the small of the other guy's back. 

"Stuart and Ackles Consulting," Jensen said, sounding proud even through half a bottle of fine scotch whiskey. "Av- aber- _ad_ vertising and marketing specialists. In the black in only 31 months."

"Impressive," Jared said, meaning it. He gestured at the picture. "Who is he?"

"Hmm? Oh, s'James. He was my-" Jensen paused, considering. "James," he said finally, apparently deciding that that was clear enough. "My James."

Jared looked at the picture and figured that maybe it was.

"James was my mentor during my first internship," Jensen said. His brow wrinkled. "Wait. Second. One of them. Good teacher."

Jared stayed silent, not trusting himself to know what to say.

"Whiz kids, both of us," Jensen continued, talking more to himself than Jared. "Me more, because I was younger. Could promote anything. Best numbers on the team."

"That's-"

"I loved that bastard," Jensen said, which Jared had been expecting. "We had an apartment and a dog and I worked sixty hours a week and James was even more… worky. He was a workaholic." Jensen smirked. "Worky workaholic. Heh. Used to blow him in his office. Long lunch breaks. He had a nice sturdy desk."

"What happened?" Jared dared, hoping desperately that it wouldn't make Jensen clam up.

Jensen snorted into his glass. "James wanted to go global. I didn't, so. Forced me out. Held the… the thing, with the board and the shares."

"Majority?" Jared suggested.

"Sure, that." He smiled without mirth. "So I broke up with him and left the state. Seemed like a bad idea." His brow furrowed. "No, that's backwards. Staying was the bad idea. I left."

Jared bit his lip. "You-"

"Bought this place," Jensen continued, waving a hand. "Always wanted a house. Too big for just me but fuck him. Had the money from the buy out. And I'd been making good commission."

"Why didn't you go work for another firm?" Jared asked.

Jensen shook his head. "Would have been competing with my own company. With my James. I stress bake," he said again, and Jared was starting to see how this story came together. "Had the money to not work for a bit, baked a lot, figured fuck it and bought a bakery. Best-marketed bakery in the fucking city. Still stress bake, though." Jensen paused thoughtfully. "You'd think I'd find a different hobby now that I not-stress bake for a living. Huh."

"And… James?"

"Doing good, I think. Probably. Kept up with him for the first while, but it just got hard to care. Which was better." Jensen stared at Jared, glassy eyed. "I didn't like caring."

"Being betrayed by someone you loved isn't something that anyone's heart is designed to suffer," Jared said gently. "Nobody would blame you for being unable to cope."

Jensen was shaking his head. "You don't get. You think I'm all-" he gestured at himself, "- _this_ because James took advantage of me. Broke my heart."

"Didn't he?" Jared asked.

"Yeah," Jensen said, almost thoughtfully. "Yeah. But that wasn't the worst part." He lifted his eyes to Jared's face. Jared didn't think he'd ever seen someone look quite so weary. "Do you know what the worst part was?"

"No," Jared said quietly.

"The worst part was that my James didn't do it because he didn't love me. He did. He loved me very much." Jensen sighed and said, in a voice that _ached_ , "just not enough." 

"Jensen," Jared said, sympathy leaving his throat thick and his limbs leaden.

The sound of Jensen's glass being set on the table was unexpected and loud, and Jared brought his eyes back up to Jensen's to find the man watching him with a thoughtful look that set alarm bells ringing inside Jared's head. 

"Jensen?" he said again, rather more nervously.

"Fuck him," Jensen said decisively. "No more James. S'my life now."

Jensen wobbled off the couch and walked towards Jared, and somehow Jared still wasn't sure what was going on until he had the full weight of Jensen's body spread across his lap, Jensen's knees tucking into the chair on either side of Jared's hips and making the leather creak.

"Jared," Jensen breathed, heat in his voice. His hands threaded in Jared's hair and pulled him in with determined force.

"Jensen wait-" Jared managed, before Jensen's mouth was on his, sloppy and ruthless. 

Jensen made a helpless little sound in the back of his throat and arched closer, like he could climb right into Jared's skin if he tried hard enough. His cock was pressed between their stomachs, not hard yet but getting there. Jared's own cock stirred with the delicious warmth of Jensen shifting on top of it and Jared had never hated himself so much in his life. 

With an effort, Jared brought his hands up to Jensen's shoulders and pushed, careful but firm. Jensen whimpered and held on tighter, his whiskey kisses turning frantic. But Jared had the double advantage of both leverage and being considerably more sober than Jensen, and broke his grip, holding him at arm's length.

"I don't understand!" Jensen cried, somewhere between a whine and a snarl. He was still on Jared's lap, looking debauched and confused and lost and absolutely gorgeous. "You want this!" He ground down against Jared's cock and Jared's hips jerked instinctively, seeking more of that friction.

"See?" Jensen said triumphantly. He leaned forwards, angling for another kiss, but Jared locked his arms and refused to budge. 

"No, I don't," he said and Jensen's face settled into a scowl.

"Don't lie to me! You always lie!" 

"Listen to me," Jared said calmly. Jensen turned his face away in petulant defiance. "Jensen. Look at me. I need to know that you're listening to what I'm saying."

Jensen glared balefully at him from under his eyelashes.

"Why are you doing this?" Jared asked. "Right here, right now. Can you tell me that? Because if it's just because you're drunk and lonely and hurting, then it's not going to help anything. Does this make you forget?"

"Stop it." Jensen started to struggle against his hold. "Let me up. I'll find someone else."

Jared didn't let go. "Will this make the hurting stop for anything longer than that time it takes to get off?" he pressed.

"Shut up!" Jensen was struggling in earnest now and Jared had to work to keep both of them from tumbling to the floor. "I don't want to-"

"You don't have to do this," Jared told him. "You keep on trying to avoid your feelings but all you're doing is pushing that hurt even deeper. This is your chance to fix it. To use all those heightened emotions to figure out how to make yourself happy."

"I would be if you'd just-!"

"So, no," Jared said gently. "I don't want this. Because when it's just sex, all it's going to do is help for a little while and then hurt both of us even worse when it's over. Right?"

Jensen sagged like his strings had been cut, body still rigid but all the fight drained out of it. His weight settled on Jared's crotch, and Jared was distantly glad that all of Jensen's thrashing had helped his body get the message that now was not the time for sex. He didn't think he'd have been particularly convincing with an erection.

"Hate you." It was mumbled against Jared's neck, like a secret.

Jared held on tighter. "Yeah?"

Jensen's head nodded.

"Why?" Jared asked quietly.

"Setting me up," Jensen accused. "Just like my James."

"What? Jensen, look at me." Jensen shook his head, pressed tighter to Jared's chest. "Jensen, come on."

Eventually, Jared resorted to tucking his fingers under Jensen's chin and tipping it up. Jensen's eyes were bright and angry, and Jared offered him the gentlest smile he had. "Jensen, listen to me. I'm not James. I'm not going to make the same mistakes he did."

"Mistakes?" Jensen reared backwards and Jared was forced to ease his hold or risk hurting him. "It's not a _mistake_ when you buy my company out under me! Our company! I own a fucking bakery! Me!"

"But you're proud of your bakery," Jared reminded him. "Right?"

"It doesn't matter!" Jensen swayed and the spill of light from the window illuminated the tracks of silent tears on his cheeks. "You can't just ruin me for a job I love! It's not fair!"

"No, it isn't," Jared agreed, but Jensen wasn't listening.

"S'not an accident! You can't break me by accident! Even if you don't want to, you still know you're gonna do it. My James… my James," Jensen swallowed down a sob, "he let me _leave_! Apologized and cried and let me ad- adbandon him without even trying to keep me! Didn't- didn't… nothing! So, don't you fucking dare call them mistakes, you son of a bitch. I used to be a person! A _real_ person! Do you get that, Jared? Mistakes don't change that, they don't… un-person a person, like m' just- just-"

Jensen sucked in a great, shuddering breath, and Jared very carefully reached out to wipe one thumb across Jensen's wet cheek. Between one breath and the next, Jensen was out and out sobbing, all of his words lost amid the torrent of misery. Jared simply held him close, feeling the front of his shirt grow damp and being regretfully glad that he didn't have enough room inside himself for all the grief he wanted to feel. 

Eventually, Jensen's deep, wracking sobs eased, subsiding into hiccups and sniffles. Jared said nothing, did nothing, just offered all the patient comfort he had in him to give.

When Jensen finally fell silent, Jared waited a few moments, giving Jensen space just to breathe, then said, "Better?"

Wordlessly, Jensen nodded.

"Are you going to be okay if I let you go?"

"Yes," Jensen mumbled and Jared eased his hold, careful not to let Jensen fall when he helped him off his lap. Subdued, Jensen returned to the couch, where he grabbed his glass with almost violent intent and took a sulky swallow.

Jared cautiously told his heart rate to calm down, watching for any sign that Jensen was about to do something stupid.

Jensen seemed docile for the moment, though. He finished the last of his drink, then stared at the photograph of him and James looking happy and flushed with success.

"Jensen?" Jared asked.

"I hate that picture," Jensen said, almost absently.

"Then why do you keep it?" Jared found himself asking.

"Because I hate it," Jensen said, as though it was obvious. "Was a hard lesson to learn and I don't wanna forget."

Jared swallowed. "What lesson was that?"

Jensen looked at him. "That love's not enough," he said, with the heartbreaking simplicity of a child who knew Santa Claus wasn't real. "You'll see."

"Oh, Jesus, come here." Jared shifted over to the couch and wrapped his arms around Jensen like he could shield him from all the hurts that had been done to him.

"Wha-" Jensen managed, but Jared just pulled Jensen up against him, hugging for all he was worth. "Go. Lemme go!"

"Hush," Jared said. Keeping his grip secure, Jared gently rubbed one hand up and down Jensen's back and dropped his head to press his cheek against Jensen's hair. It was softer than it looked. 

Jared didn't know how long they sat like that, the sad curl of Jensen's spine swaddled by Jared's entire body. Jensen didn't relax so much as he lost a slow, incremental battle against unconsciousness. Finally, his eyes slid shut and his body slumped heavily against Jared's, and Jared manoeuvered them both into a more comfortable recline against the generous arm of the couch. He cradled Jensen close to his chest, brushing a thumb briefly over the dark bags underneath Jensen's eye. After a bit of awkward shuffling and a long-stretched arm, Jared managed to click on the table lamp near the couch, which lit the room in a dim halo of light and cast shadows thickly against the walls. 

And then he lay there for a long time in the dimness, watching Jensen sleep and feeling grateful that the light didn't extend far enough to let him see that damnable picture where Jensen looked so happy.

Jared made sure that he was gone long before Jensen woke up. He covered Jensen in a blanket he found in the linen cupboard and left a glass of water and a couple of Advil on the coffee table along with a quick note telling Jensen that he'd see him later. Then he took himself home and tried to think about the murders instead of the expression on Jensen's face when he'd told Jared that love wasn't enough to make someone happy.

Not thinking about Jensen proved to be impossible, though mostly because Jared figured that Jensen had to be the key to figuring out the killer's methods. 

Because he didn't fit. All of the other victims were Jared's patients. And they'd all had major reconstructive mending done on their hearts in the recent past. Jensen was the outlier in both cases. 

Jensen was still connected to Jared, obviously, but a killer who'd been using Jared's records to find his victims wouldn't even know Jensen existed. And if, in a moment of vaguely horrified egoism, Jared wondered if the killer was deliberately targeting the people around him, the obvious choices would have been his family or Adrianne or Chad, even. Not Jensen. 

Jared puzzled over Jensen's connection to the other victims until exhaustion finally drove him to bed. The same thoughts were still swirling around in his head when he got up the next morning and they dogged his steps all the way to work.

Which did not at all help with Jared's recent tendency to drift off when he wasn't paying attention to what his brain was doing.

"Jared?"

Jared yelped, spun around and nearly fell out of his chair. 

In the doorway, Adrianne raised an eyebrow at him.

"I, oh, Adrianne! Hi! Um, is Ms. Dinwiddie here?"

"Stunning deduction," Adrianne said, with a roll of her eyes. The concern that never really left her face these days shone through as she added, "You alright?"

"Hmm? Yeah, of course." Jared gave her the cheekiest smile he could manage. "Though I wouldn't argue if you went and got me a face cookie to make me feel better."

"There is no time in your life when you need a cookie that big, Jared." Adrianne held out the file for DINWIDDIE, TRACI. "Come on then."

"Yes, ma'am." Jared put the folder carefully aside and followed Adrianne out into the waiting room.

"Ms. Dinwiddie," he said with all the warmth he could muster on short notice and little sleep. "How are you?"

"Wishing you'd call me Traci," Ms. Dinwiddie said with a bright, saucy smile. "I don't suppose you've changed your mind about marrying me, yet?"

Jared smiled freely. "Not recently, no." 

"Damn," she sighed. "Can't blame a girl for trying."

"I feel like your wife might."

Ms. Dinwiddie shrugged. "Eh, she gets me the rest of the year. One marriage proposal every three months is hardly worth worrying about. Besides, it's not like I'd leave her out; she'd totally go bi for your abs."

Jared managed an absent head shake at that, something in what she'd said pricking at the edge of his awareness.

"I think you'd like her," Ms. Dinwiddie continued blithely, and Jared felt the half-formed thought slip away before he could put a name to it. "Do blondes turn your crank or should I put a bag over her head?"

"I will sedate you if I have to," Jared warned, not meaning it. Ms. Dinwiddie laughed and graciously allowed him to escort her to the exam room for her regular check-up.

And, in the back of Jared's head, a new suspicion began to grow.

"What if it's not my records?" Jared demanded as he banged into the bakery, breathless from the run over.

Jensen blinked at him from behind the counter. "Hello?" he tried. "Also, what?"

There was a woman perusing the cupcake shelves and she blinked at Jared as well, which made Jared belatedly realize that bursting into Jensen's place of work yelling about serial killers was maybe not the best idea way to keep a low profile. 

"Um," he said, feeling embarrassment creep up his neck. "I'll… come back later?"

Jensen rolled his eyes and jerked a thumb over his shoulder. "Get in the back. I'll be there in a minute."

"Sorry, ma'am," Jared said to the lady, who offered him an indulgent smile. He shuffled through the staff door and ensconced himself on one of the wonderfully large chairs in the back kitchen. 

"Here," Jensen said a few minutes later, appearing in the doorway with a plate of cookies and a coffee from _Percolate_. He set them on the table without quite meeting Jared's eyes and Jared couldn't help but be reminded of the night before. Awkward. "I'm assuming this is something I should be calling Chris about?"

Jared nodded. "I think I know how the killer's choosing their victims."

Jensen arched an eyebrow. "Really."

"Yeah," Jared said. "Or, well, I think it's a pretty good theory, at least."

"Chris is going to be thrilled with that level of confidence." Jensen cocked his head at Jared. "You got any more appointments today?"

"Not today, no." 

"Right. You stay here and I'll check in with Chris to see if he's in the area. Eat some cookies and I'll be back in a sec."

"Jensen," Jared said before Jensen could escape.

Jensen's spine stiffened fractionally and he turned around to favour Jared with a deliberately easy smile. "Yeah?"

"I just wanted-" Jared faltered, not sure what he could say. "How's the hangover?" he settled on finally and was rewarded by an easing of the tension in Jensen's shoulders.

"Not as bad as it could be," Jensen said. He hesitated for a moment and, when he spoke, it was in a soft, sincere voice that Jared had never heard before. "Thanks. For the water."

Jared couldn't have kept from smiling if he tried. "Any time."

Jared had finished his coffee and was down to the last few cookies when Jensen returned with a vaguely irritated Chris in tow.

Jared couldn't help but think that irritated was probably Chris' default expression.

"So?" Chris said, throwing himself down in the chair across from Jared. He reached out and snagged a cookie before Jared could protest. "Mind telling me what I'm doing here in the middle of my shift?"

Jensen gestured. "Ask Jared."

"So we've been thinking that the killer was finding victims using my records, right?" Jared said. "And that he was deliberately picking people who'd had serious work done, for whatever reason. Only I've got other clients whose hearts were just as bad if not worse as the people he… attacked. And it doesn't explain why he'd pick Jensen, since Jensen hadn't had any mending done at the time."

"To get to you?" Chris tried, though he didn't sound married to the idea himself. Jensen's face was blank.

"But why pick him instead of Adrianne? Or my family? And how would they even know who Jensen was if all they had to go on was my client files?"

"I have a feeling you're about to tell us."

"What if," Jared said. "The killer knows who to go for because he's seen them?"

A frown furrowed Chris' forehead. "Seen them where?"

"In the waiting room at the clinic." That earned him a pair of puzzled looks and Jared leaned in across the table to help convey the excitement he couldn't quite feel. "The attacks happen every three to four months, right? Well, that's the standard gap between appointments for clients who have regular check-ins at my clinic. Like a yearly dentist appointment?" he explained, when they continued to look puzzled. "People come to see me three to four times a year to take care of minor hurts and general heart care. So maybe the killer's a client of mine who sees people in the waiting room before their own appointment?"

"It's possible," Chris allowed, though he sounded dubious. "Where does Jensen fit in, then?"

"You came by the clinic with cupcakes, remember?" Jared said to Jensen. "Not even a week before you got attacked."

Jensen nodded slowly. "You think that's why I got attacked? Because I was delivering cupcakes?"

"Yeah, maybe," Jared said, fighting back guilt and the overwhelming urge to apologize. Jensen getting involved in this mess really was all Jared's fault. "It kind of makes sense, right?"

"It does," Chris agreed. "You got a list of the clients you saw that day?"

Jared nodded. "It'll take me a bit to cross-reference with the most recent appointments the other victims had, but I should be able t-"

"Misha," Jensen said suddenly and Jared blinked at him.

"What?"

"Misha was there the day I went in," Jensen said. "And you said he shows up at the clinic all the time."

Jared stared at him, abruptly sick to his stomach. "But, it can't… Misha wouldn't-"

"He wouldn't even show up on your calendar," Jensen continued ruthlessly. "No way to trace him since he's not supposed to be there in the first-"

"Sorry to interrupt," Chris drawled, in a tone of voice that suggested quite the reverse. "Either of you ladies mind telling me who Misha is?"

"He's this crazy homeless guy who likes to hang around Jared's clinic," Jensen said.

"You don't know that for sure," Jared protested. "He might just be a hippie."

"He's the one who found me in the alleyway," Jensen continued, as though Jared hadn't spoken.

"He's what?" Chris spun on Jared, the beginnings of a scowl clouding his face. "I thought you were the one who found him."

"Me?" Jared said, nonplussed. "No, I was at the clinic. Misha came and brought me to him."

Chris pinched the bridge of his nose. "As soon as this shit gets dealt with, the three of us are going to have to have a conversation about what counts as vital information. This Misha guy was the first one on the scene?" he said to Jensen.

Jensen nodded. "That's what Jared said."

"He came to get me," Jared said again. "He helped me bring Jensen to the clinic. Hell, he's probably the one who scared off the killer before he co-"

"Probably?" Chris said. "You didn't ask?"

"I was a bit distracted," Jared shot back, wishing he could add more snap to his tone. "Why else would the killer have left without taking the rest of Jensen's heart?"

"Why else indeed," Jensen murmured. 

"This Misha," Chris said. "You say he's at your clinic a lot?"

"Yeah. He comes and goes, mostly. I think he's a little lonely."

"Is it possible that he's come into contact with the victims?"

Jared bit his lip. "I guess so, yeah. I don't exactly keep track."

Chris made a noncommittal sound. "He been in since Jensen got attacked?"

"Yeah, of course." Jared glanced at Jensen. "He said he hopes you're feeling better, by the way."

Jensen shook his head. "Jared-"

"How many times?" Chris asked. He pulled out his notebook and set an expectant pen to the page. 

"Twice, maybe?" Jared guessed. "Or three? I'm not always in the waiting room when he comes by."

"Can you give me approximate dates?"

"Uh, not really?" Chris was back to looking irritated and Jared sighed. "I've never been good at remembering this sort of thing. You'd have more luck asking Adrianne. She's the organized one."

"Hmm." Chris jotted down a note. "This guy got a last name?"

Jared shrugged helplessly. "I don't know, probably? It's not like I ever asked. He's not one of my clients."

Chris gave him a narrow-eyed look. "Are you intentionally being difficult?"

"No!" Jared dragged a frustrated hand through his hair. "God, it's not like I know _your_ last name either, now is it?"

"Chris, lay off," Jensen said, to Jared's surprise. "He can't tell you what he doesn't know."

"Humph." Chris stowed his notebook and stood. He leveled a finger at Jared. "The minute this guy walks into your clinic again you let me know, you got it?"

"But I know Misha," Jared protested. "He'd never kill anybody. I'm sure of it."

"You can never be sure," Jensen said. "Not about other people." His voice was flat and Jared winced at the realization that he was speaking from experience. 

"But the three months," Jared tried instead. "It's almost clockwork. Misha's never followed a pattern in his whole life, I don't think."

"Could be him trying to throw you off," Chris said, though not unkindly. "Keep me posted. Later, Jensen." He snagged the last cookie off the plate as he left and Jared couldn't even muster up the energy to be put out about it.

"I've got some baking to do," Jensen said, after several moments of silence between them. "Are you going to help or sit there and sulk?"

"M'not sulking," Jared said, distantly aware that he sounded a little sulky anyway. "It's just… it's _Misha_. I've known Misha for years. I can't believe he's…"

"You trust people way more than you should," Jensen said and Jared's heart just wasn't up to trying to tell if that was meant to be an insult or not. Jensen clapped a companionable hand on his shoulder. "Come on. I've got raspberry crème truffles to make and those ingredients aren't going to mix themselves."

"Slave driver," Jared said, looking up with a weak smile.

"Hey, you're the one barging into my shop and making the customers think I like spending time with crazy people. You owe me."

"Fair enough." Jared pushed his chair back and Jensen nodded at him before turning towards the door. "And Jensen?" he said, and Jensen twisted round to look at him. "Thanks."

"Knock it off," Jensen said. "And get a move on. Lazy fucker."

Jared couldn't sleep.

It had been three days since Chris and Jensen had decided that Misha was suspect number one. Jared had seen neither hide nor hair of Misha in the meantime, but that wasn't unusual. Jared was used to going without seeing him for weeks at a time, only to have him show up three times inside a fortnight the next time he surfaced. Misha was anything but predictable.

Jared had been turning over the issue in his head ever since, more unsettled than he was going to admit to either Jensen or Chris. The worst part, Jared thought, was that Jensen's argument made good sense; Misha wasn't exactly a model of normality and, despite the fact that he genuinely liked the guy, Jared could reluctantly see Misha being someone who might think hearts would be a fun thing to collect. It would explain what he found so fascinating about the clinic, at any rate. There was no way of knowing for sure, not until they found Misha, but there was no denying that the situation wasn't exactly in Misha's favour.

And yet, even knowing all that, Jared couldn't help but think they were barking up the wrong tree entirely. Granted, his gut feelings weren't something that would stand up in court, but Jared had learned to trust them nonetheless. His mama used to joke that Jared was even better at judging character than the dogs were. And he'd never got the slightest inkling that Misha was anything other than what he appeared to be - with the possible exception of the whole homeless thing.

Which was why Jared was staring at the darkened ceiling of his bedroom in the late hours of the night, feeling guilty and ineffective. 

By the time the clock hit 1:56am, Jared had had enough. He hauled himself out of bed and headed into the closet for a sweater, wincing at the chill of the floorboards as he went. He shoved his wallet and his keys into his pockets, then called a cab. Which was probably unnecessary given the scant distance he was covering, but Jared had no particular desire to wander around the city at two o'clock in his pajamas.

He shoved his feet into his sneakers without bothering to find socks, then waited at the door until the taxi arrived. Sleep pulled at his eyelids, physical fatigue adding to the emotional exhaustion, but Jared had had plenty of practice outstubborning his body's needs in the past couple of months. 

The roads were quiet and empty as Jared's cab trundled the few blocks to the clinic. The cabbie made bland conversation that Jared returned mostly on autopilot until they pulled up to the curb in front of the clinic. Jared paid her and headed inside, not bothering to turn on the main lights as he headed for the office. Shadows towered everywhere as Jared fumbled for the light switch. The mess was somehow even more daunting than usual, probably because of what Jared was there to do.

It took a few false starts before Jared managed to track down the massive planner he used to record appointments. There was a digital one on the computer somewhere as well, but Adrianne was better at navigating that than Jared was. The digital planner had masses of information on what the client needed doing, how long each appointment was meant to take, how long appointments actually took, the total charge for the appointment and all sorts of other stuff that Jared wasn't interested in. All he needed was the names.

Because if Jared couldn't prove that Misha wasn't a suspect, he could at least see if anyone else was.

Once he'd found the thing, half buried under a stack of client files on the floor beside the couch, Jared cleared enough stuff off his chair and the desk to settle himself and the planner down. He spread the massive book open, rooting through the drawer for a pen and a notepad. 

The day that Jensen came in with the cupcakes was the obvious place to start. Jared scribbled down the names of everyone who had been in the room while Jensen was there: Ferris, Morgan, Roché, Sheppard, Boecher. And then he went hunting. 

The victims' client files were still on the floor near Jared's foot, so Jared scooped them up to cross-check the dates. He flipped back to Miss Perkins' most recent appointment, the last one she'd had before her heart was stolen, but none of the names matched. He scribbled down all the appointments from that day on the next page of his notebook, just in case. Then he checked her visit before that and those names got written down as well. Once he'd finished her file, he moved onto the next victim. And then the next.

It was a long, tedious process. He had pages of appointments to dig through and most of the victims had been repeat clients because the kind of damage they'd sustained generally required more than one appointment to mend properly. Jared's eyes burned as he wrote down name after name, the scratch of his pen and the flip of pages loud in the quiet.

After Jared had compiled a list of names for each victim, he started crosschecking. One by one, he scratched off all names that didn't appear on every list.

Nothing matched. Not a single name in the last year matched up with more than two victims.

"This is impossible," Jared said to himself. He slumped back in his chair, wincing at the ache in his back from hunching over and wondering if he was completely on the wrong track. "Dammit," he sighed. 

He flipped listlessly through the files on his desk, wondering if it was even worth the effort to try something else. On a whim, he picked up the closest file - Mr. Morgan's - and thumbed through it to the notation pages where Jared made his own notes about each appointment. They yielded absolutely nothing of use and Jared was about to throw the thing across the room in disgust when one of the notations caught his eye.

"The third of May, 2012," Jared read aloud. "Fifteen minute check-in to observe condition of crack in the upper left ventricle. Mild green discolouration. Herbal ointment prescribed."

Frowning thoughtfully, Jared opened the planner to May 3. He was at once surprised and unsurprised to find that, since Mr. Morgan's check-in had been short enough to slot in between other appointments, it hadn't been recorded in the planner, just in the examination notes. 

"Dammit," Jared said again, for a completely different reason. He shoved his chair back and headed to the filing cabinets to grab the rest of the client files he wanted.

Jared reopened Miss Perkin's file and set it down on the table alongside Mr. Morgan's, one finger on each notation page as he compared the dates all the way down the list. Nothing matched. He moved on to DJ Qualls' file and did the same. Still nothing.

"Looks like you're in the clear, Mr. Morgan," Jared said, setting aside his file and reaching for the next one.

It was similarly unhelpful. It wasn't until the third one that Jared caught the break he'd been hoping for: a last minute rescheduling that matched up with Miss Perkins' second to last appointment. The next victim's appointment had matched up in Jared's first attempt and Jared felt a rising mix of anticipation and adrenaline in his veins. Carefully, he worked his way through every notation. A rescheduled appointment here, a filling of a last-minute cancellation there, a squeezed-in appointment when they came in on the wrong day, a fifteen minute drop-in for a pulled stitch.

They all matched. Every single victim had been in the waiting room at the same time as this client.

Jared stared at the evidence, stunned. His eyes dragged up the page, past that damning list of dates, up to the name typed in bold, bald letters across the top.

ROCHÉ, SEBASTIAN

"Jesus Christ," Jared breathed. After a moment, he realized that this wasn't information he should just be staring at and twisted round to dig into his pocket, fumbling for his cell phone.

"Oh," a voice said, sudden, loud and jarring. Jared jolted upright and froze when he realized who was standing in the doorway. 

"Am I early again?" Sebastian Roché said, in that placidly endearing way of his. "I do get my times muddled up, you know. I'm forever rebooking appointments." 

"You-" Jared started, brain still tripping over itself. "Mr. Roché what are you…?"

Jared tried to jump to his feet, to put some more distance between them, but Mr. Roché was faster. His hand was on Jared's shoulder in an instant, pushing him back down with a strength that Jared would never have expected. Quick as a flash, Jared found his head wrenched to one side and felt the terrifying prick of a needle at the base of his neck. 

"Shh," Mr. Roché said, calmly depressing the plunger and removing the needle in a swift, tidy little motion. "Just a little prick, there we go. I know you're more of a pricker than a prickee but, just this once, I think it's better if you let me take the lead."

"Stop-" Jared tried, but the words felt thick and heavy on his tongue. Mr. Roché's hand in his hair turned into a gentle carding of fingers that Jared's deadening nerves could hardly feel. "Mr. Ro…"

"Under the circumstances," Mr. Roché said, with an amiable smile that swam at the edges of Jared's vision. That smile was that last thing Jared saw before blackness swallowed him, Mr. Roché's voice following him down into the dark, "I really think you can call me Sebastian, darling."

Jared woke up flat on his back, feeling like he'd been frozen solid and left to thaw in the sun. He groaned a wordless protest at the brightness beyond his eyelids and tried to roll over, only to discover that he was strapped down at his wrists, ankles and waist.

He came awake in a hurry.

"Good evening, darling," Sebastian's voice said from somewhere, and Jared rolled his head labouriously to the side to see Sebastian sitting in a chair at his elbow, watching him with an avid sort of anticipation on his face. "Sorry about the sedative. Well, no I'm not, but it seems appropriate to apologize in this situation, don't you think?"

Jared didn't answer, not entirely sure where his tongue was right now. Jared's head was fuzzy and the world beyond Sebastian's head was hazy and indistinct in a way that made it very clear that Jared was still under the influence of whatever drug Sebastian had injected him with. His limbs were heavy and unresponsive.

"I thought you'd be more comfortable here," Sebastian continued, and it was about then that Jared realized that he recognized the room they were in. And the chair he was strapped to.

Sebastian smiled, dimples in full force, and tapped at Jared's wrists where they were cuffed at his sides. "I have to say, I'm impressed at how little you've used these restraints considering how many people you have in and out of this chair. I always knew you were good at the technical parts, but your bedside manner really is quite exceptional. Never met a mender quite like you." He winked. "And I've known my fair share, I can tell you that."

Jared's stomach roiled. Sebastian's face was open and encouraging, as though strapping Jared to a chair and all but admitting that he was a serial killer was a perfectly normal thing to do.

"Well?" Sebastian asked. "Aren't you going to say anything? I love hearing the sound of my voice, really I do, but I wouldn't have waited for you to wake up if all I wanted to do was talk to myself. Think of it like a survey! Fifteen minutes of my time to answer a few routine questions."

Jared stared, openly discomfited by the fact that Sebastian was acting no differently now than he did when it was him in the chair, cracking jokes about anything and everything. He would have thought that Sebastian would have been more obviously serial killer-like when actually killing people.

Sebastian made an encouraging motion with one hand. "Go on then. Ask. Captive audience, and all that."

Jared thought for a moment. "Ar-"

"Wait, wait, sorry," Sebastian said, laughter in his tone. "Let me start first." He coughed and arranged his face into a bright grin. "Hello zere," he said, shifting into an unexpected and surprisingly good German accent. "My name iz Zebaztian and I collect heartz. Nice to be meetink you! You are zurprized, ya? I zought you vould be."

Jared stared at him, nonplussed.

"Just like that," Sebastian said then, switching back to his normal voice. The man was _insane_. "Really, darling, you're far too trusting. It's delightful. The look on your face when you saw me - brightened my entire night. Okay, your turn now!"

"How-" Jared's tongue slipped off the word and he swallowed down spit so he could try again. "How did you know?"

"That you were getting close to figuring it out? You."

Jared's face screwed up as he tried to figure out what that meant. "When-"

"He's not very good with faces, is he, your Jensen?" Sebastian said, leaving Jared struggling to keep up with the sudden shift in conversation. "You know, I really am terribly offended that he didn't remember me. After I went to all the effort to visit his lovely little bakery. Although I suppose I can't complain too much. If he'd been paying attention it wouldn't have been so easy to eavesdrop on your fascinating conversation with the overcompensating little policeman the other day. Good job figuring it out, by the way. You're the first one who ever has." He pinched Jared's cheek with a delighted grin. "Clever clogs."

"You've… done this-s-s before?" Jared slurred.

"I've always enjoyed eavesdropping," Sebastian said, as though that had been what Jared was talking about. He grinned a cheeky sort of grin. "There's something so delicious about doing things you're not supposed to, don't you think?"

"You mmmurder people."

Sebastian clutched a dramatic hand to his chest. "Murder! That's slander and blasphemy, darling! I am a connoisseur. An aficionado. The deaths are merely an… unfortunate side effect of my love of true art."

"Unfortunate!" Jared tried to rear up but only managed to jerk in his bonds and make the chair rattle.

"Very unfortunate," Sebastian agreed, with a grave little nod. "It's not as though I have anything against the poor pets; they just have things I want. You know how that is, don't you? Of course you do." Sebastian hummed thoughtfully. "Although I think we can both agree that you have a wee bit too much self-control, wouldn't you say?"

"Thought I got to assk the qu-qu-questions," Jared said, fighting for every inch of coherency he could get. The roll of drugs in his bloodstream slowed the already sluggish thump of his heart, leaving him feeling faint and wan. Sebastian had definitely overdosed him - not enough to have killed him outright, thankfully, but enough that Jared would have been calling for an ambulance if he'd had the chance. 

"Right, yes, I'm sorry." Sebastian clasped his hands under his chin and leaned in close. "Go ahead."

"What are y-you," Jared growled low in his throat as he tried to force his mouth to do what he wanted, "going t' do with mme?"

"Another unfortunate situation," Sebastian said, sounding genuinely regretful. He sighed. "I don't normally do this," he confided. 

"Mmmurder people?" Jared said again, because he was nothing if not a moron. "Yesh, you do."

Sebastian's hand lashed out and Jared braced himself for an attack, only for Sebastian to give him a light tap on the cheek that Jared scarcely felt.

"Naughty! I'd almost think you were trying to get yourself in trouble. It's entirely untrue, of course. Your Jensen's still alive, isn't he? Personally," Sebastian said, leaning in close and dropping his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. "I'm more than a little surprised he managed it, but then again, he had you didn't he?" Sebastian pinched the cheek he'd just patted. "Oh, you have no idea how tempted I was to take the rest, just to see what you'd done to fix him. I love your work, by the way, Jared," Sebastian said, with a sincere and absolutely terrifying grin. "Which I'm sure you've figured out, but I've never really had the chance to tell you myself. I've seen a lot of mended hearts over the years but yours are… amazing. Singular. Pure artistry. You have a real gift."

 _Am I supposed to say thank you?_ Jared wanted to ask, but he probably wouldn't have been able to say it aloud even if he was that stupid.

"But that just didn't seem sporting. I really am chuffed that he survived, you know." Sebastian beamed, dropping into a Brooklyn accent to say, "Now what sort of low down murderer would be glad if his victims survived? The defense rests."

Jared narrowed his eyes at him. "No excuth."

Sebastian shrugged. "Maybe not. Now, I am sorry that it had to be a friend of yours," he said. "But how could I pass him up? Something more than flesh is much more beautiful and your Jensen was so beautifully damaged. For a while I hoped that you might have mended him in the past - I said that I'm a fan, didn't I? Because I'm a fan - but it wasn't hard to realize that he was far too emotionally withered to have any of _your_ work inside him. You'd never do such a shoddy mending. Still, I wasn't expecting no work at all so, really, it's hardly a surprise that the silly thing broke when I made my rather hasty exit."

Sebastian spread his hands in a sheepish 'what can you do' gesture. "Although in my defense, I wasn't expecting to get interrupted either. I'd have gone somewhere more private if I'd known that that wonderfully eclectic friend of yours was sleeping nearby."

"Fr-" Jared started to ask, before realizing that he meant Misha. A flood of relief went through him, which Jared knew was ridiculous because he couldn't have had more proof that Sebastian was the killer if Sebastian had walked up juggling all the missing hearts - and he suspected that he'd be watching it happen to himself before long - and yet still it was good to hear that Misha definitely hadn't been involved in the attack. What's more, he'd saved Jensen's life, just as surely as Jared had. 

"Ding, ding, ding!" Sebastian said, with a beaming grin. "And that marks the end of our customer survey today. Thank you for participating! You've been entered to win a trip to Tahiti, but you're not going to win. No one ever does."

"Wh-what now?" Jared asked.

Sebastian wagged a chiding finger at him. "Ah, ah, no more questions. Besides, you're a clever boy; I'm sure you can figure it out."

Sebastian pulled Jared's tool tray closer and Jared swallowed hard.

"You're a special case," Sebastian said, pulling on a pair of gloves. "Obviously. I'm sure you have a lovely heart, darling, but you're not really my type. No offense. There's just something _lacking_ in normal, untroubled hearts. I'll treasure it anyway, I promise. The heart of a true mender." Sebastian smiled, never losing that calm, affable demeanor. "I've liberated a page or two from my client file," he said then. Jared's tired brain was having serious trouble keeping up with him. "Hope you don't mind. You see, it might affect my credit rating if some other clever soul follows your thought process. I'd probably lose my house too. And I am rather fond of it."

Sebastian clicked on the chair lamp and Jared flinched at the glare. 

"Did you want me to knock you out again?" Sebastian asked solicitously. "I'd rather you were awake - I do so enjoy your company, darling - but I'll understand if you want to be unconscious for this part. It's likely to be a wee bit stressful."

Jared glared at him as best as he could when his eyes weren't focusing properly.

Sebastian smiled. "Oh, goodie! I thought you'd say that. I brought my own tools," he continued, lifting up a scalpel so that Jared could get a good look at it. "It'd be a bit of a gaff wouldn't it, using yours. So impolite. Try to hold still please."

The scalpel sliced cleanly through Jared's skin and Jared was distantly impressed at Sebastian's proficiency with the blade. At least dying was only going to hurt the expected amount, instead of adding the pain of shoddy workmanship. The scalpel was set on the tray with a tidy little click and then it was Sebastian's fingers against the numbed skin above Jared's heart, coaxing the gap open. Jared closed his eyes and waited for the inevitable.

Jared knew the exact moment when Sebastian saw what Jared had done to himself; his hands froze and he sucked in a sharply audible breath. "Well," Sebastian said, after a lengthy pause. "You do know how to be surprising."

Jared looked down and shrugged as best as he could while strapped to his exam chair. "Do what I can."

"No, seriously, this is fantastic. How are you even alive?" Sebastian leaned in closer, tilting his head for a better view. "You did this yourself, didn't you? I'd recognize that stitching anywhere. I open myself up sometimes just to look at your stitches."

Jared fought back a shudder.

Sebastian was still examining the scabbing down the side of Jared's heart. "You've done a masterful job; you'd hardly know it had to be done in a mirror. It's healing fairly well too." One gloved finger snuck in to brush against the fragile seam where the rest of Jared's heart had been. Jared jerked at the touch and had to be momentarily grateful for the straps holding him still; if he'd been able to move that could have done some serious damage to the delicate flesh.

Sebastian hummed thoughtfully. "A couple of months ago? It's taking quite the toll, though, isn't it? You're blackening around the edges and these small tears shouldn't have taken hold so deeply. Well, except this one." He reached out to touch the vein of copper winding its way down the length of Jared's heart. "This one probably would have hurt either way. Looks like someone didn't think your heart was broken enough yet." He blinked up at Jared. "Do you want to talk about it?"

Jared turned his head away, stubbornly silent.

"The gold thread's surprisingly resilient," Sebastian noted, almost absently. He picked up the scalpel again and Jared forced himself not to hold his breath when it slipped under the bottom stitch. "It doesn't dissolve?"

The scalpel twitched and Jared felt the snap of the thread splitting. The flesh around the broken stitch sagged, dragging down on the rest of the thread and Jared gasped at the bright scrape of pain across deadened nerves.

Sebastian made an absent, interested sound. His wrist moved again and Jared couldn't contain a groan when the next stitch gave.

"Well, you can colour me impressed. Of course," Sebastian said, tracing the scalpel idly against Jared's heart and trailing stinging trails in his wake as he headed for the next stitch. "The real question is what you did with the rest of it."

"He gave it to me."

The edge of the scalpel bit in hard when Jared jerked instinctively towards that familiar voice and only Sebastian's matching surprise pulling the scalpel back kept Jared from dying right then and there.

Jensen stood calmly in the doorway, looking like he'd come straight from a night out at the bar. His hands were empty and loose at his sides. He was staring at Sebastian, steady and unblinking. 

"Jensssen…" Jared said, dismayed.

"Not now, Jared," Jensen said, not looking away from Sebastian.

Who was looking absolutely delighted. "Oh," he breathed, a smile breaking across his face. "Oh, oh, oh! So that's how you did it!" Sebastian swung back to Jared. "Amazing. Did you do it yourself? What am I saying, of course you did. Working on that kind of time limit must have been wretched." The scalpel lifted and Jared breathed a shallow sigh of relief. He could feel the slow drip of blood from the newest wound and tried to convince his drugged mind to figure out how long he had before that was going to be a serious problem.

Not long enough, was the only solution he could come to.

"This I have to see." Sebastian looked down at Jared. "Sorry, darling. I know I said I was going to leave him alone, but I wouldn't be any kind of collector if I let this opportunity pass me by." He made a happy little sound. "Oh, you just _spoil_ me, you know that? No one else ever gives me presents like this." He smoothed a gentle hand over Jared's hair. 

Jensen coughed unsubtly.

Sebastian cocked his head at Jensen as if surprised he was standing there. "Oh. You don't mind, do you, darling?"

"Actually, I do," Jensen said, almost dryly.

Sebastian waved a dismissive hand. "Come now, there's no need to be difficult. I've already got the other half and it misses you. It's very pretty, you know. I keep it in a jar on my bedside table. Sometimes I sit and watch it beating for hours. It'll be a shame to give that up, but it'll be much better to get the matched set." Sebastian brightened. "I should sew the rest of your heart to his and have a lovely pair of Frankenstein hearts! I'll even give the two of you your own shelf; it'll be smashing."

"I don't think so," Jensen said. Jared had no idea how he was staying so calm. "You're going to let Jared go."

"What for?" Sebastian asked, sounding genuinely puzzled. "It's not like he's going to live much longer anyway. He doesn't need it."

Jensen went still as stone.

Sebastian blinked at him and then, abruptly, laughed. "Oh my dear, my dear. You can't really be this thick, can you? It's killing him," he said bluntly. "Or maybe I should say that _you're_ killing him."

Jensen's eyebrow twitched. 

Jared winced. 

"Oh yes," Sebastian said, with obvious relish. "The only reason our darling Jared's still kicking is that he had such a big heart that it's taking his body a while to realize that it can't survive with half a heart. I doubt he's got much more than four months left in him." Sebastian took another look at Jared's heart and hummed thoughtfully. "Though it looks like someone's been mistreating him recently, which is going to shorten that time considerably." He glanced up. "That's you, I assume? Must be, don't know why I'm asking. I can't imagine there's anyone else who'd have so much power to hurt him as the lovely boy he cut his heart apart for. I've got no idea how you didn't notice, darling. Really, it's obvious."

Jensen's expression didn't change. "Jared," he said evenly. "Is that true?"

Jared managed a nod. "Fraid s-so, yeah."

Sebastian made a consoling little sound. "Poor self-sacrificing Jared. Heart too big for this world. Really, I'm doing him a favour." Sebastian stroked a soothing hand over Jared's cheek. "Poor darling. It must have been terrible, feeling your world get grayer one day at a time. Have you been suffering in silence all this time?"

"Are you done?" Jensen asked him, in a voice that sounded like hell frozen over. 

"Oh, I _suppose_ so," Sebastian said, with a heavy sigh. "Jared's probably getting uncomfortable." He removed his hand from Jared's forehead and reached to reclaim his scalpel. "Deep breaths," he said. "You know the drill."

Jensen stepped forward. "Stop."

Sebastian rolled his eyes heavenward. "Really, darling, what's the point of all this? I appreciate that you're trying to be heroic, but this really isn't the time or place. I can slash Jared's throat before you take another step. Sorry," he said to Jared. "No hard feelings."

"Coursse not," Jared said because, really, what else could he say at this point?

"You've just made things worse by coming here, you know," Sebastian continued. "Because now I feel obliged to cut you open and Jared is going to die knowing that you're following right after."

Jared's heart sank. Well, what was left of it.

"Stop it, Jared," Jensen said, still not looking at him.

"I mean, honestly. Did you really that coming here by yourself, unarmed, while I've got a blade to darling Jared's heart was going to end well? Did you think you'd be able to appeal to my good side-" Sebastian's vowels went Texan long and languid "-cause I'm such a durn nice guy?" 

"No," Jensen said simply.

Sebastian looked honestly taken aback. "I'm afraid you've lost me, darling. Why, exactly, are you here, then?"

The lights went out all at once and Jared tensed at the sound of booted feet charging through the door. He heard Sebastian swear and braced himself for a scalpel to the throat, only to have his breath escape him in a confused rush when there was a sharp concussion above him and the scalpel chimed as it hit the floor.

"Police!" a voice barked, just before the lights flickered back on to reveal an honest to God SWAT team swarming into Jared's exam room, night goggles on and guns brought to bear against Sebastian, who was apparently on the floor somewhere beyond Jared's field of vision. 

"I was buying time until the police could get here and arrest your crazy ass," Jensen explained belatedly.

Impossibly, Sebastian began to laugh. "Oh, well done you!" he said, sounding entirely unconcerned by his own capture. "Very nicely played. I'd tip my hat if I had one and these fine gentlemen weren't cuffing my hands behind my back."

"You have the right to remain silent," one of the SWAT team members said and Jared tuned out the rest of Sebastian's Miranda Rights in favour of staring hazily at the ceiling. It was moving much faster than Jared thought was really appropriate for a ceiling.

"Jared?" Jensen asked, and Jared tilted his head to find that Jensen was right next to him, fumbling with the straps around Jared's wrists. "Jared, talk to me."

"You okay?" Jared managed, after a few false starts. The place where Sebastian had sliced through the first few stitches was starting to throb something fierce, the wound from the scalpel was bleeding more than Jared appreciated, the drugs were showing no sign of giving him a break and it was getting increasingly hard to hold onto consciousness. 

Above him, Jensen looked sort of angry. "Don't you even dare," he said. "I'm fine and you're not."

"M'glad. Dun like you hurt." Jared blinked muzzily at Jensen. "Hossspital."

"There's an ambulance coming." The buckle around Jared's wrist folded under Jensen's fingers and he leaned over Jared to get to the other one. "Just stay awake."

"'ll try," Jared said. Jensen was bent over his chest, his face near Jared's right bicep as he focused on the straps. Jared found his attention caught by the look of intense concentration thinning Jensen's lips. "Heart," he said, forcing the words past his numb lips because this was important. "Yours. Ss-still, ss-still… alive. Hossspital mmmenders can fix it."

"What did I say about worrying about me?" Jensen said, but he didn't sound upset. Jared wasn't sure what he did sound like.

"Jensssen," Jared protested. "S'important."

"I'll deal with it," Jensen said shortly. "And when you wake up we're going to have a long talk about you committing delayed suicide to save my life."

"M'awake," Jared said, though it was only just barely true. 

There was a commotion near the doorway and Jared looked away from Jensen to see a pair of paramedics rolling a gurney into the room.

He rolled his head back and blinked heavily up at Jensen. "C'n I pass out now?"

"Okay," Jensen said. 

Jared smiled at him as he let his eyes fall closed. "Fanks."

The smell of antiseptic and starch tugged Jared into consciousness some undetermined amount of time later. He blinked up at an unfamiliar ceiling, registering the needle in his arm and the faint fog in his head that said that Sebastian's drugs were out of his system but that at least one of the bags on the IV stand was keeping him well supplied with painkillers. A roll of his head to the side revealed that he was in a public room, but that the curtains had been pulled around the bed to give him a little privacy.

There was a chair beside the bed and Jared was surprised to find Jensen asleep in it, arms crossed over his chest and head lolling to one side in a way that looked terribly uncomfortable for his neck. He was wearing a plain t-shirt that Jared didn't recognize and there was a cotton ball taped to the inside of his elbow. 

As Jared sat there, Jensen twitched and stirred, wrinkling his nose up in the most adorable way, and Jared blinked as he realized that he could feel a quiet flush of affection curling in his veins, much stronger than he'd expected. In fact, Jared realized with a sudden shocked exhale, he felt better than he had since he'd given his heart to Jensen; it was as though the world had finally come back into focus after months of bad reception. Jared tried a smile on for size, feeling the way it made his heart - his entire heart - beat faster. 

"What're you so happy about?" 

Jared looked over to find Jensen awake and watching him with a studiously blank expression. Jared felt his good mood sour instantly at the thought that Jensen had lost all these feelings that Jared had just reclaimed.

Jensen rolled his eyes. "Knock it off, dumbass. You missed all the excitement." 

"Are you okay?" Jared asked, because the fact that Jared wasn't dead yet meant that Jensen was his first priority again. "Your heart, is it okay? Did they search Mr. Roch- Sebastian's house? Did the mending go properly?"

"Yes, yes and yes," Jensen said. "I'm all sorted." 

"Did they-"

Jensen held up a stalling hand. "Hey, you were the one kidnapped by the world's most cheerful serial killer. Worry about yourself first."

"I was, wasn't I?" Jared thought about that for a minute. "Christ, that's unbelievable."

"You're telling me. You're not the one who walked in to see you tied to your own chair with a crazy person holding a scalpel to your innards."

"Thank you," Jared said sincerely, and Jensen shrugged, obviously keen to dismiss the whole concept. "Jensen. I mean it. You saved my life."

"Just returning the favour," Jensen said, squirming a little. "Lucky for you I was in the neighbourhood."

Jared frowned a little. "But… how did you know I was in trouble?"

"You kidding? I can feel you angsting a mile away. And I've been tapped into Radio Jared long enough to be able to tell the difference between your usual angst and you're 'oh my god, I'm going to die, help me, Jensen' angst."

Jared made a face at him. "I do not have 'help me, Jensen' angst."

"Yes, you do. I was at _The Bishop_ and felt you totally wig out."

"I'd just exposed a serial killer and looked up to find him smiling at me," Jared said, most definitely not pouting. "You would have freaked out too."

"Then you fell completely off the radar and since your heart _never_ shuts up, I called your cell to see what was going on. Didn't get an answer, so I figured the clinic was the next place to look. It was about then that you woke up again, I guess, and it wasn't hard to tell that you were in trouble. So I called Chris." Jensen smirked a little. "He's got words to say to you about you waiting until the middle of the night to get attacked by serial killers."

"Next time I'll wait till his lunch break. The cops came in with you, right?" Jared asked. It seemed suddenly, vitally, important to know that Jensen had been safer than he'd looked, standing unarmed in the doorway facing the man who'd tried to kill him. "Chris was in the hall with you, right?"

Jensen snorted. "How long do you think it takes to pull together a police sting? Here's a hint: the movies lie. I waited as long as I could."

"Jensen, you can't-"

"I could, I did and a whole lot of police officers have already given me this speech so you can just shut it. A rescue mission wouldn't have been worth the effort if you'd got your idiot self killed before they got there."

"But-" Jared bit back the rawness in the back of his throat. "You could have been killed."

"So could you."

"But that's not fair," Jared protested. "You heard Mr. R- Sebastian. I was involved. You weren’t. I put you in danger because-" 

Jensen arched an eyebrow. "Because?"

"Which answer do you want?" Jared asked, hearing the bitterness in it. "Because I didn't figure it out sooner? Because that madman was targeting my clients on purpose because he 'liked my work'? Because I put my fucking heart in your chest because I couldn't bear to watch you die?"

Jared was breathing hard and dangerously close to yelling by the time he finished, shaking with disgust and belated terror. 

"You done?" Jensen asked. "Because, last I checked, you don't get to make my decisions for me. And if you want to talk about fairness, how about we discuss the fact that you half-killed yourself in the name of saving my life? The hospital menders were amazed you were even fucking alive when I told them how long you'd been functioning at half capacity. Oh," Jensen added, starting to sound angry himself. "And let's not forget that you didn't even try to build yourself a replacement for the missing half. Even though I've got it on good authority that you're probably the best mender in the entire fucking state and if anyone could do it, it would be you. And then lied to me about it. So yes, _let's_ talk about fair, hmm, Jared?"

Jared stared at him, dismayed. "Jensen…"

"You're a right bastard," Jensen growled. "Thinking that sacrificing yourself is the way to make things better. If it'd been me strapped to that chair, you'd have gone in guns blazing, no backup whatsoever, and gotten both of us killed."

"You'd be dead if I wasn't a self-sacrificing bastard," Jared pointed out.

"True," Jensen said. Then he shocked Jared entirely by smiling a fond, secretive sort of smile that seemed somehow familiar. "So I guess we balance each other out somehow." 

Caught off guard, Jared nodded awkwardly and let the conversation clatter to a halt. The sounds of the hospital drifted through the flimsy curtain around the bed and Jared wondered how many other people were in the room, how many lives were passing in and out of the hospital doors right now.

"So," he started, only to have the word devolve into coughing as his dry throat abruptly protested all the yelling. 

A cup of water appeared under his nose and Jared took it on autopilot, trying desperately not to read too much into a Jensen who cared about whether or not Jared got his fool self killed and waited at his bedside in the hospital and got him water without being asked. "Thanks," he rasped.

Jensen waved him off. "You had a question?"

Jared nodded. He took a deep swallow of water, then set the cup on the side table and stared at his hands. "Am I under arrest?"

Jensen's eyebrows were getting quite the workout today. "For?"

"For preferring pink to green," Jared said irritably. "For putting half of my heart in your chest, obviously! Illegal human organic mending, remember?"

"Actually," Jensen said, sounding suddenly amused. Jared couldn't keep up with all these abrupt emotional switches. "There's precedent for it in federal law. Sharing of hearts between two adult, consenting bodies is 100% legal."

"But-"

"I'm going to shut you up right there," Jensen said pleasantly. "My choice, remember? And I'm choosing to say that I asked you to do it. Also, there is no world in which pink is better than green. I'd lock you up for that shit if I could."

"Jensen," Jared said, injecting as much irritation into his voice as he could. It was an impressive amount, even if he said so himself. "I didn't give you a choice."

"And it worked out for the best. Which means that, regretfully, I should probably start listening to you more often."

Jensen's expression was bland but not blank and Jared found himself feeling strangely off-balance with the entire conversation, like Jensen was reading off a script that Jared had only seen the rough notes for.

"I live my own life," Jensen said. "And that means deciding that I'm wrong sometimes. You want proof that I'm fine with this? Here."

Jensen sat up straighter and grabbed the hem of his shirt. He pulled it off with stiff, careful movements and Jared watched as the fabric peeled away to reveal the fresh incisions above Jensen's heart. The skin was pink and red around the edges, though not inflamed, and held together only by a desultory series of stitches - plain black and too widely spaced to offer any real support for knitting the skin back together.

Jared frowned, hands itching for a needle and thread to put him to rights. "Who did that? It's never going to heal right like-"

"I told him to," Jensen interrupted, and Jared felt a brief pang as he remembered the last time Jensen had said that.

Jensen caught the look and his mouth quirked in acknowledgement. "I actually did, this time."

Jared's frown deepened. "Why?"

The shrug Jensen gave him wasn't nearly as casual as Jared thought Jensen had intended for it to be. "Figured you'd want to see."

Jensen leaned over and picked up a pair of small scissors that Jared hadn't noticed off the small table beside the bed. Scissors in hand, Jensen cut carefully through the knot holding the threads in place and, with a series of minute winces, tugged the stitches through and out.

"Gloves," Jared said automatically, when Jensen went to peel the skin back.

Jensen's answering sigh was surprisingly tolerant. "Jared, I have been disinfected to within an inch of my life in this place. I've had more people's hands in my chest than I ever want to again and let's not forget that I survived being scalpeled in a dark alley by a serial killer. I'm not going to get heart sickness from the tips of my fingers." 

"Fine. But don't touch anything," Jared warned. 

"Yes, mom." 

Jensen firmed his grip on the skin and, with a strangely hesitant look, pulled it free.

Jared had expected something similar to what Jensen's heart must have looked like before Sebastian had torn it apart: thin, weary and blackened, with a new line of stitches - white, maybe? - trailing down the break. In his more optimistic moments, Jared had imagined that there would be a little extra rigour in the half of Jensen's heart that had been sewn to his, though he hadn't been holding out much hope.

He couldn't have been more wrong.

The first thing that Jared noticed, oddly, was the familiar glint of gold thread, shining solid and strong down the centre of Jensen's heart. Then the surprisingly steady rhythm of Jensen's heartbeat, far healthier than Jared would have expected.

Then the fact that Jensen still had half of Jared's heart.

Jared stared, dumbfounded. That was absolutely his heart, still beating in tandem with the remaining half of Jensen's, but the result looked as much unlike the wretched mess Jared had cobbled together as night to day. The flesh beneath the gold thread had knitted together tight and smooth, the warm reds of Jared's half swamping over and through the brittle green marring Jensen's. Jared's side had shriveled a little, not really a surprise given the handicap it was dealing with, but somehow looked like it had breathed that lost vitality into Jensen's side. Jensen's side had grown, still smaller than the average, but so much stronger, so much bolder than it had been. 

They looked strangely right together, those two mismatched halves.

The gray in Jensen's side was all but gone, replaced by a muted rose that spoke of steady recovery and acceptance of his emotional pain. The black had thinned, still there but no longer swallowing Jensen whole. And, around the edges, Jared could catch the rosy blush of new love, deepening to a healthy crimson that was threaded through with white streaks that looked like nothing so much as hope.

"Jensen?" Jared asked. He didn't look up to meet Jensen's eyes. He couldn't.

"It was like this when they opened me up," Jensen said quietly. "The hospital menders said that they'd be doing more harm than good cutting it apart. Because, somehow, I've got a single, whole, completely functional heart." Jensen smiled and Jared caught it in his peripheral vision. He was sorry to have missed it. "S'been years since I had one of those. So I'm keeping it. Hope you don't mind."

"But you'll be stuck with them," Jared said, staring at the wealth of emotions - real, brave, gritty emotions - inked into that surprisingly beautiful merging of flesh. "All my feelings. You said you didn't-"

"How about you listen to what I'm telling you now, hey? Besides," Jensen sniffed. "You gave it to me. No take-backs."

Jensen smoothed his skin carefully back into place and wiped his fingers on the hem of his abandoned shirt. Then he sat back in his chair, apparently oblivious to the fact that he needed sewing back together. "I'll get someone to take care of it later," he said, anticipating Jared's instinctive protest. "We need to deal with some other stuff, first."

Jared had already opened his mouth to ask what Jensen meant when he realized what was wrong with the fact that half of his heart was now part of Jensen. 

He pressed a shocked hand against his own chest, and his eyes flashed up to Jensen's face. "But, if you've still got it, what's…?"

"Funny thing that," Jensen said. "Our friendly neighbourhood serial killer came up with the idea."

"Wha-?" Jared blinked at him, sure he'd misheard.

Jensen shrugged. He kept his eyes fixed on Jared's but Jared could tell that he was managing it with an effort. "Well, it worked pretty well for me, so I figured the other way around might be good too."

Dawning comprehension widened Jared's eyes. "Jensen, did you-"

"It's a poor trade for the one you gave me," Jensen said and Jared was abruptly aware that he could feel the faint tremor in Jensen's voice echoing tenfold in his own chest. "But it's the best I've got."

Jared stared and his hand pressed harder against his chest, counting out the heartbeats. "I've got the other half of your heart… in me?"

"Yeah. They found it in Sebastian's house," Jensen's mouth twisted, "right where he said it was, which is fucking creepy. So don't you dare tell me that you're the only idiot who gets to make decisions about giving away bits of his heart," he said, something fierce in his voice that Jared did not want to argue with. "Because you're going to be able to feel how much that pisses me off and that's going to make it really unpleasant for both of us when I punch you in the face on top of that."

Jared was speechless. "Jensen, I-"

"Worked out better for me in the long run anyway," Jensen said. He stretched and Jared fought the urge to page the nurse and demand some damn thread when the motion made his incisions gape. "You've got to deal with my emotionally stunted pile of flesh pulling the rest of you down. As if it wasn't already going to take you a while to recover your strength. But the menders say that I'd never have got back this range of emotions if not for your heart. No amount of mending could have really fixed the damage I've done to myself. "

Jared forced a thin laugh. "Guess organic mendings are useful, after all. The traditionalists are going to have a field day."

"You think?" Jensen sounded thoughtful. "Cause I think it's got more to do with the guy who gave it to me. And probably the fact that I've apparently fallen in love with his stupid, emotional ass which means that our hearts are pretty compatible."

Jared's breath caught in his throat. "Jens-"

"Hey," Jensen said. His tone was light, almost conversational, and he was smiling a crooked, hopeful sort of smile. "If I try to kiss you, are you going to freak out again?" 

Jared smiled back, feeling hope and love swell in both sides of his newly mended heart. "Depends. Why do you want to kiss me?"

"You'd better not need to hear it again," Jensen said. "It's been a hell of a long time since I gave this love shit a try and I've got no reason to think of it fondly. I'm planning to work into it slowly."

"You willing to put up with me for the rest of your life?" Jared pressed. "Because I'm in this, in _anything_ with you, for the long haul. And if you don't want that, then… I can't-"

Jensen rolled his eyes. "Jared, we've literally given our hearts to each other. I think it's pretty safe to say that I'm not going anywhere." He paused for a beat, then grinned and added, "Even though you are a lot of work."

"Oh god, come here and kiss me already." Jared reached up as Jensen bent down and they were both smiling as they met in the middle for a kiss that felt so much more like a beginning than a happy ending.

And in their chests, his and Jensen's hearts beat in steady time.

  


**[Fic Master Post](http://cleflink.livejournal.com/73257.html) | [Art Master Post](http://smallworld-inc.livejournal.com/24193.html)**

**Author's Note:**

>  **Acknowledgements:**  
>  Get their own section because they be LONG. Wow, I have many people to thank for helping me get this monster posted. 
> 
> A million thanks to [tebtosca](http://tebtosca.livejournal.com) for being there right from the beginning and helping me turn a strange, abstract idea into something with an actual plot and character development and other fun story-type things. Your excitement, good questions and willingness to suffer through sprints with me to get this shit done have been delightful and invaluable, my dear.  
> Big hugs to [dugindeep](http://dugindeep.livejournal.com) for sprinting with me and cracking the metaphorical whip when I was whinging about my edits. It's a good thing someone was keeping me on track, hon, because God knows I wasn't doing it myself. I am so happy to have had the chance to get to know you better, as well!  
> Cheers to [oddishly](http://oddishly.livejournal.com) for a fabulous zero hour beta. You're a superstar and I don't know what I would have done without you. Thanks for taking one for the team, ridiculously early morning included!  
> A shout-out to Laura and Mum for typo hunting with me! They're sneaky things, those typos. All remaining mistakes are my fault entirely.  
> To all the ladies in the handholding/cheerleading email circle ([dugindeep](http://dugindeep.livejournal.com), [fiercelynormal](http://fiercelynormal.livejournal.com), [morrezela](http://morrezela.livejournal.com), [tebtosca](http://tebtosca.livejournal.com) and [zubeneschamali](http://zubeneschamali.livejournal.com)) for, well, all the handholding and cheerleading. ^_^ I very much enjoyed flailing over all of our stories with you!
> 
> Of course, I must thank [petite_madame](http://petite_madame.livejournal.com) for being a) fantastic and b) a wonderful person to collaborate with. I'm still amazed and humbled that my odd (not so) little story was the inspiration for such gorgeous artwork. Thank you for your enthusiasm, your hard work and your willingness to put up with me babbling about grammar. ^_^ You've made this year's bigbang an absolute delight!  
> And I know that you all went there first anyway, but if there's anyone who hasn't checked out her [Art Post](http://smallworld-inc.livejournal.com/24193.html) yet, make very sure that you do! It's all absolutely stunning (and wonderfully full of blood, organs and cupcakes. As it should be). 
> 
> And finally, thanks always to [thehighwaywoman](http://thehighwaywoman.livejournal.com) and [wendy](http://wendy.livejournal.com) for hosting this challenge! You make it so much fun to participate in this challenge and to be part of the Supernatural/RPS community that makes it possible!


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